Retrograde
by MinkeOR
Summary: "The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of the body."- Publilius Syrus. Dr. Alina Horowitz heals minds and memories, but there are some patients better left untouched. Still, when you don't have a choice, it's best to jump in with both feet. Immersing herself in a world that she has no business being in, Alina must cope with truths about herself and her new patient.
1. Chapter 1

Fall is coming down hard on the city, threatening to sweep cold air in with the ever encroaching darkness that sneaks up on us earlier and earlier every day. My office window is open just enough to let in the smell of crunchy leaves and the first hints of tin-sharp cold along with the evening traffic that bustles about below me. I, however, am engrossed in a collection of notes and charts that my fingers scan over as I record the days appointments and observations for the record keeping. Scans and pictures of brains are littered amongst the notes, and every so often I will pick one up and reorient myself in my train of thought. I'm woefully behind on these, and I've been pushing most of the evening to get caught up.

When I press the stop button on my tape recorder, it's only because I have yawned for probably the fifteenth time during this dictation. Whoever ends up transcribing this tape is going to have a fit if I can't keep my yawns under control. I rub my eyes furiously and stand up from my desk, thinking that maybe a brisk walk through the department is what I need to wake me up for the last bit of work for my evening. On my way out of my tiny office I grab a stack of papers that I've been meaning to photocopy and head down the deserted hallway towards the rickety piece of office machinery.

The rest of the offices in our wing are empty, dark for the night as their occupants have long since gone home to their families. Even the receptionist is gone. But that's alright with me. She treats the copier like it's her own personal instrument of frustration and makes a stink if anyone else wants to use it. I usually have to sneak down to MRI/Radiology and use theirs if it's an emergency. At this time of night though I have free reign and I walk in my slippers like I own the place.

This wing of the hospital is quiet at night, used mostly for day appointments with patients who are receiving ongoing treatment, but we're still connected to the main building and available for consultations. I can see the entrance to the ER from my window, and sometimes when I need a break I will watch the little slice of humanity milling around the sliding doors to our House of Pain.

But I'm not allowed to call it that. My department head has cautioned me against it. Says it, "upsets the patients and their families."

"But they won't even remember!" I often retort. He doesn't think that's funny, either. While I feel a sense of humor is necessary in this line of work, it's usually the first thing that people allow to slip away when they've been dealing with brain injuries day in and day out for years. It's especially bad with the two other specialists I rotate with, they've been mired in case after case of watching the people lose their memories, people whose minds slip slowly from between our fingers no matter how hard we try to get them to hold on. Yes, it's enough to wear down anyones sense of humor.

Right now I'm not feeling humorous though. What I'm feeling is intense dislike of the aging copier that has jammed, yet again, and is blinking a less than helpful message at me. Paper jams are the bane of my existence.

I bang on the side of the machine, thinking that somehow this will solve my problem, but to no surprise it does nothing. I'm just about to wrench open the sides to look for the jam when a rush of chill goes up my spine and I stand up straight and whirl around. A quick pulse of fear races through me and my gaze darts around the deserted department. I breathe deep, trying to calm my pounding heart, and remind myself out loud that I'm alone. But for a second there, it was like I could feel someone else in the room. Like how you sometimes see deer in the woods become suddenly alert when they sense the presence of another.

The office space is still and silent, just as I like it, but that feeling of not being alone lingers on.

"Hello?" I call out tentatively, thinking that maybe one of the janitors has come early and that I'm getting worked up over nothing. But there's no answer. That doesn't help my feeling of unease.

It takes a minute before I turn back to the copier and finish my task, quicker than I would have if I hadn't frightened myself. Because I convince myself that's what I did, it's the only way I can keep myself from running back to my office and locking the door. It's all in my head. But the shadows feel menacing now, like they are keeping secrets from me and I think it's probably time to go. I gather up my files and tape recorder and throw them into my filing cabinet beside my desk, locking them inside to prevent any HIPAA violations.

When I'm in the basement parking garage for staff, I still feel that same small sense of being watched and every few steps I glance over my shoulder but still I'm alone. My car is agonizingly close and I speed up a little to get to it.

That's when I hear the rush of footsteps behind me close in quickly, I start to turn but there is a strong arm around my chest, a sharp sting in my neck, and then the world goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

The sound that escapes my lips when I open my eyes is one of pain mixed with confusion and disgust. It's an odd sound, the base of pain clearly distinguishable from the other two notes, and I am struggling to make sense of why I'm making such a noise. I should be at home in my own bed, waking with a head jumbled with questions and musings from the previous night, and not a body that protests at every move I try to make. Instead of the familiar, my eyes take in a sparse room with a table and two chairs in the middle and a large mirror on one wall. I am lying on a cot on the wall opposite the mirror.

"What the fuck," I whisper to myself as my brain tries to catch up to where I've found myself, my voice is barely audible as my cracked throat scratches when I speak. I try to remember the night before, but the last thing I can recall is saying goodnight to the doctor whose office is across the hall from mine. After that, there is nothing. Not even a memory of sleep. It's as if I blinked my eyes and was transported to this strange room.

I push myself up, moving through all the protests in my joints and bones, and lean against the wall when my head begins to spin. I think I'm going to be sick and look quickly for a garbage can to vomit in. There is none (of course, just my luck) and instead of retching on the floor I close my eyes to the spinning and pain and breathe through it. When I feel myself steadying again, I open my eyes and start to take stock of myself. I run my hands over my face and back through my hair down to where my fingers clasp each other behind my neck. But there is something strange on the right side of my neck. A tiny bump that presses up against the palm of my right hand, a small protrusion that was not there before.

When I finger the bump, my confusion escalates. The bump feels like a small injection site, and when I press against it a sharp, stinging pain follows. Well, this is certainly interesting. Whatever it was, an injection would explain my lost time and the suddenness of the change in scenery. But it brings me back to the crux of my current problem: Where the hell am I?

Before I can go too far down the rabbit hole of guessing at my location, a door to the room opens and a man and woman walk in. They both look at me slumped in my corner on the cot, and the man glances at the woman who nods back at him before he takes a few steps in my direction. He's tall, blonde, and built like a tank. He's clean-cut, dressed in jeans, a white shirt, and a close fitting sweater that accentuates every muscle in his upper body. I think that in my weakened state he could easily crush me if he had the mind to. But something in his face calms me, an innocence and gentle way, the same kind of deep kindness that comes from a person's soul. He's like a human labrador retriever and I know he won't hurt me.

The woman on the other hand is a different story. She positions herself in the corner and while the man's face is open and earnest looking, her expression is a blank slate. Her red hair is pulled back and her eyes never leave me. She leans against the wall and crosses her arms, a clear signal to me that she is relaxed but in control of the situation. She looks like she walked in from a seminar on how to look like a complete badass in boots, well-fitted jeans, and a leather jacket over a red shirt. I'm not afraid of the man, but I instinctually know to be wary of this woman.

The man kneels next to my cot and stares deep into me. I stare back.

"Hello, Alina," he says, "My name is Steve, and that's Natasha," he gestures to the woman who only nods her head slightly in acknowledgement. His use of my name snaps all my attention to him and I feel electrified from this small form of recognition.

"We're here to ask you some questions. Are you feeling up to it?"

I nod in agreement but I don't think I have a choice. I'm not even sure I can speak, let alone muster up the strength it will take to get to the table. Steve extends a hand to me though and when I take it he pulls me easily to my feet where I sway again before he grabs hold of my elbow.

"Easy does it," he says. "The effects of the drugs will wear off in time. Sorry we had to do that, but it was necessary."

_Drugs_. I was right, there was an injection, and whatever it was they shot into me was certainly having it's way with my body. I quietly resolve to find out what had been done to me, though a nagging in my mind told me I would soon know.

Steve helps me to the table where I sink into one of the chairs and rest my arms on the table, leaning hard into them in an effort to hold myself up. He walked around the other side and sat opposite me. Natasha stays silent in her corner. There's a file on the table that I couldn't see from my place on the cot, and there's what looks to me like Russian written across the front of it. While I don't speak much of the language, it doesn't take much to guess at what the block of red letters stamped across the front mean.

"Dr. Alina Horowitz," Steve says when he's settled himself in his chair. He slides the file towards himself and places his palms down on it when he speaks to me. "NYU Langone Medical Center neurology department, specialist in degenerative diseases and brain injuries."

"Yes," I say quietly, acknowledging his addressing me again by my full name and his recitation of my current place of employment. I'm also testing my voice and finding it will come stronger than I had anticipated. Steve smiles.

"We need you to look at something, and tell us what you think," he says. He moves to open the file but before he can, I interject.

"Why," I don't say it like a question on purpose. He looks up at me again, this time more serious.

"Your patients and your research work, they all share a theme," he says. "You focus on memory loss and trauma. You help people recover memories they've lost because of accidents."

"Yes," I say. "But why am I here?"

"Take a look at this and tell me what you think." He ignores my question and pulls two pages from the file and slides them across the table to me. I recognize them immediately, two CT scans of a brain, the same brain if I had to put money on it. One is saggital as if I'm looking down at the brain, and the other frontal as if I'm looking straight at it. Something in them catches my eye immediately and I have to resist the urge to scoop them up for a closer look.

"What about them,?" I try to keep my voice casual.

"What do you make of them?" Steve says, his voice is relaxed, like he could wait all day for me to start playing his game. Eventually I give in and pick up the frontal scan. My eyes go straight to two black holes, mirror images of each other near the center of the brain.

"This," I say and point to the area. "This is unusual."

"How?" Steve asks and the spot of skin between his eyebrows furrows as he waits for me to answer.

"The limbic structures, they're greatly reduced, so much so as to be invisible in this cut of the frontal plane scan. I've never seen this before. It's like they've shriveled up or something." Even though it hurts to speak, I am determined to get it all out. I place the photos down on the table and slide them back towards Steve who is watching my movements carefully. His body seems relaxed but his eyes betray a sense of urgency that I feel like I can take advantage of.

"These scans," I continue, "I can only tell so much from them. Whoever this is, and I'd bet this is the same person, needs an MRI to confirm the damage."

"That's impossible to do," Steve says.

"Do you know this person?" I press him. "Because if you do then you might want to tell them that they're in some real trouble. That is if they can remember who you are." This seems to hit him and I see my chance.

"Now, I want to know what's going on and why you've brought me to wherever this place is. I'm pretty sure you guys aren't the cops because I don't have so much as a parking ticket to my name. So what's going on."

Steve looks over his shoulder at Natasha who shrugs at him, as if to say 'I told you so'. I can feel the answers are coming. He sighs and turns back to me.

"Is there anything that can be done about those?" he asks pointing at the scans, and there's sadness in his voice and his eyes.

"Maybe, maybe not," I answer with my stock reply to these situations. "There's really no way to know for sure. There are a lot of other factors that need to be taken account of before it can be determined how to procede with treating a case like this, and whether any recovery is possible."

"All right," he says and opens the file again. This time he pulls out an aged picture of a man and places it on the table so I can see. I have a feeling this is the owner of the brain in question.

"You're here because of this man. We were tracking him and discovered that he was seeking you out and so we set up surveillance on you in order to intercept him. Fortunately, we were able to intervene, but we had to take you in the process. But we figured that it would work out for his situation if we made use of your skills."

"But why me," I try to emphasize. "There's hundreds of neurologists in the city, there are plenty of people who can help, I don't understand why it has to be me."

"We don't know the answer," Steve admits, and at this Natasha shifts in her corner. They have an entire non-verbal conversation in just a few glances. "But we want to find out."

"We have an offer for you," Natasha says, finally speaking. It takes me off guard. "We need you to stay and see if you can do anything to help him."

"And if I don't?" I ask.

"If you don't," she continues. "Then it could be a situation where you find life getting very difficult for you. We have our ways of being very persuasive."

"So, I don't have a choice." They both look at me and I throw my hands up before settling back in my chair.

"Let's take a walk," Steve says. When he stands, I do the same, and it takes everything I have to walk with him out of this room and into a complete unknown.

But like I said, I didn't think I had a choice.


	3. Chapter 3

The three of us leave my little room with Steve in the front, me in the middle, and Natasha bringing up the rear. I notice the panel of one way glass that we pass that views into the room I was just in. I try to suppress wondering how long I'd been passed out in there and how long I'd been watched. We move down a long hallways, slowly since I'm practically shuffling my feet because I am still fighting against whatever it was they injected me with, but my escort seems to have all the patience in the world for the task. We pass several other windows into similar rooms, none of which are occupied.

"You guys sure know how to make someone feel welcome," I mutter, and get no response. It was only half-heartedly meant to be funny.

At the end of the hall we come to a set of elevator doors and Steve pushes the call button. Silence, for a minute, while the numbers descend with a speed that seems rather rapid to me. I wonder if I should be more worried than I already am. Though I'm not sure how that would be possible. The elevator is all glass with a small railing around the edge and we shoot up with alarming speed. I find myself gripping a railing as we rise and rise above the city and I get my first glimpse of something that orients me in the world.

As we ascend, I can see Central Park cutting a thick swath through the middle of the city and a part of me is relieved. I still don't know exactly where I am, but seeing that I am still within the confines of my hometown is a small comfort. Eventually the elevator slows and we're let off on another floor with a long hallway. So many hallways. More doors line the one I was behind. I put my hand out and start to lean into my fingers scraping down the wall, thinking I may drop soon if we don't stop moving.

Steve turns us into a door and we enter a lab of computers and consoles. Servers line the walls and I am taken aback by the sheer number and size of them. This is a central nervous system if I've ever seen one. Natasha sits down at one of the consoles and motions for me to sit as well. I gladly accept the chair offered ad scoot myself over to have a better look at the monitor that she is working on.

"This video was shot the night you were taken," she says. There's a smaller window on the screen and I recognize the security camera footage of the parking structure. She presses 'play'.

"There's you," she says, pointing to a figure walking towards a car. I recognize myself, glancing over my shoulder, tucking my bag closer to my body. I'm moving quickly, speeding up even, when suddenly someone appears from out of frame and rushes up behind me. They have an arm around my upper body in a fraction of a heartbeat and then I drop to the ground, limp as a child's doll. The person, a hulk of someone, stands over me for a moment before reaching down and slinging me over their shoulder to carry me off. They only make it a few steps before two more figures rush in.

I wince when I see myself dropped unceremoniously on to the concrete, still limp, and a quick but brutal fight ensues. I am not used to such images. It's over before I know it and the two late-comers have subdued my assailant, using something they must have injected him with as I was able to now see a jab from one of the two into the man before he falls.

"Wow," I whisper. It doesn't seem to do the moment justice.

"We replaced this footage with a loop of the parking lot. No one has seen this, and no one ever will," Steve says from behind me.

"Who is he?" I say. I can't stop staring at the monitor, which is frozen with the image of me lying on the ground. The reality of it and the pain in my body is starting to drive a feeling of panic in my back and it will wrap it's arms around me if I'm not careful.

"He's the man from the picture," Steve says and his voice is gentle. "His name is James Barnes and he's a soldier. We've been looking for him for the past six months and finally caught up to him when he came to the city. He was part of the group that was responsible for the incident in DC."

"Was?" I say. "What happened to them?"

"They were destroyed," Steve answers. "Disassembled from the top down. They used him as a weapon, manipulating him and then sending him off on missions to direct the course of history over the last fifty years. Stopping them meant leaving James Barnes in limbo, so now we're going to try and bring him back.

"His memory has been wiped," Steve presses on. He extends the file towards me and I take it gingerly, knowing it's a pandora's box that I could choose not to open. "I know the memory of who he was is still in there, and I need you to try and help him."

I remember the events that shook the country earlier in the year, and how it had sent shockwaves through New York with the memories of our own strange attack. And then it begins to click in my head where I am.

"Wait wait wait," I say. "This is The Tower, isn't it?"

The Tower, once Stark Tower and now rumored to be home to the Avengers, most people just called it The Tower. We are still struggling to rebuild from our own attack, the whole city was suffering one form of PTSD or another and here I am in the belly of the beast, the last place I could think that I would want to be.

But the look on Steve's face is not one of command, where he could order me to do what he wants, it's like he's begging me. I don't know what to say at this point, but I still open my mouth and am surprised by what comes out.

"Ok."

"Well, that explains what you meant about the MRI," I say with a sigh. I'm standing next to Steve in front of a window that looks on into a room that is nearly identical to the one I woke up in, except this one has a window to the outside and is occupied by James Barnes. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I see him, and while I still can't remember it, I can't get the images from the video out of my mind. Every so often he looks over at what I know now is one way viewing glass, and I swear he can see through to where Steve and I are.

"Yeah," Steve says, never taking his eyes off the man. "He's got some issues with magnets."

This makes me laugh and my body aches again in protest. I'm lean myself against the wall and keep my eyes on the man with the metal arm, wondering how he got it, wondering if I even want to know. I'm clutching the file Steve gave me and am staring at the man before me and try to reconcile him with the photograph I had seen.

"You'll have access to all his records," Steve says, never taking his eyes off Barnes. "Anything you need to make him better."

"I can't make any promises," I answer. "But I'll do my best."

"That's all I ask."

For a moment I feel like I step away from this problem, but the question of why it has to be me still lingers in my mind and I know that the answer to that question won't come from Steve and Natasha. It's buried deep within the man with the metal arm, that man who targeted me for some reason. And I can get to those answers myself.

"When do we start?" I say and Steve smiles down at me.

"We already have."


	4. Chapter 4

I'm late.

Really fucking late. Mostly it has to do with not knowing where the hell I am in The Tower, but my restless night of research isn't helping my situation. Neither is my lack of coffee, and since I'm two strong cups behind my usual caffeine intake I can already feel the day going from terrible to fiery-train-wreck disaster. It's going to take some kind of miracle to keep that from happening.

The night before, after seeing Barnes through the window, Steve showed me to a small studio apartment that would be my home while I worked there. It was utilitarian, much like a hotel room, and I got the sense that whoever else lived in this place had spaces like the one I was in. It was comfortable enough, with a tiny kitchen and large picture window that looks out on to the city. The apartment is stocked with basics like coffee and a machine that I'm pretty sure you need to work for NASA to understand, and the dresser has some basic clothes inside.

My instinct is to lay down and disappear in the enveloping duvet, but my first order of business for the evening had been to spread out every document I had been given on Barnes. His file was packed with translated notes and observations from several sets of initial experiments, the transcripts of which made my toes curl at some points. There were schematics and performance graphs of a machine that gave me chills, and then finally I ended at the scans of his brain. My eyes lingering on the damage inflicted on this man.

I didn't sleep well that night, so when I missed what must have been an automatic alarm (and the several subsequent snooze alarms) I was off to a late and annoyed start. Which is how I found myself rushing to find my way back to Barnes' door.

It's often said that a doctor's bedside manner is something that comes easy, or it doesn't come at all. I've been witness to this wisdom a fair number of times over the years and while watching others stumble through or connect easily with patients I'd been honing my own skills. There is an art to it and I've come to understand that when it comes to my work dealing with brain trauma and memory loss, it's best to present a calm and collected leader who will see the patient through the confusing and often heartbreaking process of trying to heal a mind. So usually, before I meet a new patient or their family, I picture George Washington crossing the Potomac, and I will square my shoulders and march confidently into the room, ready to lead my charges.

But this morning when I'm finally standing in the hallway outside James Barnes' room, I'm finding it difficult to conjure up my inner Washington. I'm leaning against the wall across from his door, clutching his file, a pad of paper, and a digital recorder in my arms like they're my weapons going into this fight. I shake my head, I have to stop thinking that it's a battle. I'm here to help someone, just like I always do. When I place my fingers on the door handle, I take a deep breath like I would before plunging into deep water, and slowly open the door.

"Hello," I say warmly as I enter and calmly head towards the table. Barnes is sitting on his cot, his back against the wall and his legs drawn up and criss-crossed underneath him. I can feel his eyes on me while I move across the room and I keep myself focused on staying calm and appearing in control. But while I walk the images from the video, the ones of him attacking me, keep rising to the forefront. I sit down at the table and assemble my things, creating order from the chaos is a like a balm to my nerves.

Barnes just watches me. When I'm ready, I sit back in the chair and look back at him. We spend a few minutes in silence just considering one another. He looks relaxed, wearing surgical scrub pants and a long sleeve shirt that covers most of his metal arm. The clothes were probably provided for him, although I see the appeal in such a comfortable outfit. But the thing that sticks out at me is that he's wearing a pair of thick socks and no shoes. Which means no shoelaces to become a danger. I meet his eyes again, and the cool blue of them draws me in.

"Well," I say, pulling myself away from them with some effort and pushing the record button on my little digital recorder. "We have a lot to discuss. You already know who I am, but I'll give you the proper introductions anyways. I'm Dr. Horowitz, and I'm here to help you with what they tell me is some significant memory loss on your part." I direct my attention to my papers and remove his CT scans from his file. I lay them on the table just like Steve did to me. Barnes doesn't move. In response I hold one of them up, the frontal view, and point to the empty areas.

"This area," I explain. "is where your limbic system should be. That's the part of your brain where your memory is stored. From what I gather, you've sustained repeated exposure to targeted electrical shock meant to disrupt and decimate your memories."

"Wiping," Barnes says, his voice low and even. It's the first sign that he's actually taking in what I'm telling him.

"Is that what it was called?" I ask. He nods. I push on.

"There's a chance for recovery, that over time with some work on both our parts, your brain can heal itself and the memories might be partially recovered. But you have to trust me, and I have to trust you." I want to tell him how difficult that's going to be for me, but I hold my tongue. He doesn't need to know that I'm not sure I will ever be able to trust him.

"You know," I say instead. "In my room I didn't have a window." He glances over at the window and looks back at me, a little puzzled.

"The room I woke up in," I continue, "it didn't have a window in it. They probably didn't think I needed a view or something."

"I don't like it," Barnes says.

"Why?" I ask.

"I don't like high places," he answers and there's a hint of what might be a grin, that is if he would ever allow his face to really show it.

"How do you know that?" I push. His forehead crinkles and he considers what I've asked him for a moment.

"When I look outside," he says slowly, considering every word. "When I stand right next to the window, it doesn't feel right."

"That's good," I tell him. Try to reassure him.

"Look," I say, "This isn't usually how this is done. Usually I'd be doing one part and another doctor, a shrink, would be helping you sort through the emotional stuff. But there's a method behind recovering things, things that you think are lost, and I can at least help you with that." I pick up the recorder and hold it out so he can see that it's on.

"Whatever we dig up, I'm going to record. That way you can go back and listen to yourself. It can help to hear yourself saying things that you remember, because you tend to believe your own voice more than you would someone else's. We'll spend part of our time doing stuff like this, just talking, part of our time doing exposures with things that might trigger some kind of memory, and the other part we'll be doing some work in the lab."

Barnes nods at me, and seems to agree with the plan I've laid out, but there's hesitation in his eyes.

"Lab?" he asks, and I understand.

"Just bloodwork, and some scans of your brain," I say, trying to keep my voice calm. I try to picture what he's thinking about from the information I had gleaned from his file, but what I can't feel is the fear that briefly passes over his face but is quickly replaced by a strong resolve. He nods again.

"Let's start with some simple things," I move forward with the conversation. "Just create a baseline for you." I wave my hand to invite him over to the table and to my surprise he actually does unfold himself from his place on his bed to come sit across from me. I should keep my guard up, but I get the sense that he is sincere in his want to get to the truth of who he is.

"What's your full name?" I start with.

"James Buchanan Barnes," he answers.

"How do you know that?"

"It was on the sign at the museum, next to my picture" he says with that same little half-smile. "And on the carrier, the man in the suit, he said that it was my name."

"And you believe that?"

"Yes," he says. "When I say it, I felt it in here." He puts his hand on his sternum, and I know the feeling he's talking about. It's the tug of something that is set deep in memory, something that becomes a part of who you are.

"That's good," I say. "Hold on to that."

We don't get very far after that. I ask him if he knows his birthday, where he was born, or his parent's names. Things that should be settled deep in his memory, but I watch as he tries to dig and gets frustrated at himself for turning over stones in his mind and finding either blurred and distorted fragments or nothing at all. I decide to turn back to something that he does remember.

"The man on the carrier," I say as I push my hair back, trying to settle myself again. "Do you know him?"

"Yes," he says, and he latches on to that truth. "I knew him. From before." What happens next is so fast that I almost miss it. But something clicks behind his eyes and they dart back and forth over the surface of the table and he grips the edge, causing a dent where his metal fingers are twisting in. When he looks up at me, it's a fearful recognition that meets my gaze.

"You have his eyes," he says slowly.

"What?" I say, my body cold.

But before he can elaborate, there's a solid knock on the door and Barnes falls out of where his mind had been and shrinks back into his chair, lost again to me, and taking with him that tantalizing statement.


	5. Chapter 5

"Whose eyes?" I say, trying to ignore the knock and bring Barnes back to where we are. But he just sits there staring ahead, completely lost in whatever moment has him in it's grip.

"James," I plead, the timbre of my voice distorting into something desperate as I try to catch his attention. It's no use, though. There's another knock and I push myself back from the table and out of my chair.

"_Son of a-_" I swear under my breath as I storm over to the door and throw it open to find Steve poised to knock again, his face startled by my sudden appearance and obvious fury at being interrupted.

"What do you want?" I almost hiss at him as I back him away from the door so I can shut it.

"How is he?" he stammers, thrown off by my reaction. I'm taken aback, and for a moment I just stare at him. I have to remind myself that this is the other half of the equation. While I may be treating Barnes, it's Steve who will need to be reassured that everything is going to work out and that I know what I'm doing. He is the family half of the mathematics and I would do well to remember that. But then, he could also be a source of information if I just ask the questions.

"Steve," I begin. "It's going to be a long process, but you need to have patience. And it's not going to do you any good to be lurking behind that glass all the time waiting for him to say something or just snap out of it. Just give it time and give me some space to work. This is what I do. Have faith in that."

He nods at me and steps away and puts his hands on his hips, like he's steadying himself.

"I have to ask you," I say gently, "Do you know what he's talking about, someone on a carrier?"

"Yeah," he answers, turning my way again. "It's me."

"And the eyes? Who is he talking about?"

"I don't know," he shakes his head. "It's not me, I never had any children. I don't know what he's seen or who he's talking about." I can tell he's just as confused as I am. Well, at least he isn't filled with the sense of hitting a dead end like a brick wall. Or maybe he is.

"Ok," I say into the quiet of the hallway. "Leave it for the day, find something else to do, and let me do my thing." When he finally agrees to leave, I take a minute in the hall to collect myself. I lean against the wall and let myself slide down to the floor, letting myself absorb what has happened in the last twenty-four hours. I think about every minute of it, relive it all quickly. It's been years since I cried over a patient or their circumstances, and I struggle against the balloon of emotion that is swelling in my belly and pushing it's way up my throat. If I open my mouth, I'm surely going to sob. Because I'm trying to help someone but don't really know what I'm doing. Because I was kidnapped and told I have to try. Because I don't know how long I've really been here, just the one day since I woke up in my interrogation room. And really, because I still don't know why I'm here.

Which is the worst part of it. I'm not threatened to tears because of someone else's situation, I'm almost crying because of mine. And that's not fair.

When I go back in the room, I lock on to Barnes and go back to the table where he's gingerly touching the dents his metal fingers made. I take the recorder and with a final gesture that he can see I press the stop button and then set it back down.

"You and I have to talk," I state.

"I thought we were," Barnes says.

"You owe me something," I press him. "You owe me an explanation. I need to know why I'm here. This can't work if we aren't honest with each other and I need to know why you wanted me. Why you tried to kidnap me."

A long silence stretches between us while he takes his time watching me.

"I know that you know," I get angry at him, thinking that maybe that will stir something in him. "And you owe it to me because you dragged me into this and this is the last place that I want to be and I want to know why I'm here." When I finish with a little huff he's finally looking at me, and he's finally smiling.

"You really don't know," he says.

"How the fuck would I know?" I yell at him. He puts his hands up in a gesture of defeat. His face scrunches up and he leans down to put his head in his hands, rubbing them over his face and tangling them in his long hair. I instantly regret my anger at him, and that's when I start to cry. Big, silent tears spill down my face and I make no effort to wipe them away. I want him to see it, and when he looks up at me I force him to make eye contact with me.

"Tell me why I'm here," My voice is flat and I think that jarrs him more than anything.

"The things I see," he almost whispers, "the things that I remember most, come in flashes. A train, bright lights, the quiet snow with red. Then I'm lying on a table, men standing around me, a small man with an evil smile and thin voice. Everything was pain and harshness and a cold that I couldn't explain, but there was one tiny source of warmth. I hear his voice when I sleep, speaking in a soothing tone but I don't know what he's saying. I know his name though."

He looks down at the table and I think for a second that he's going to disappear again, but he stays with me.

"Eli Buchman." When he says it his voice is barely audible but it hits my ears as if he was screaming it at me.

"That's impossible," I say matter-of-factly. "I've read your file, and I know when you were taken. Eli Buchman has nothing to do with you."

"Yes, he does," this time it's Barnes whose voice is meant to be soothing.

"No," I state. "He was killed early in the war, there's no way he has anything to do with this." But my ears are starting to ring from what he's said.

"Forget what you know," he tells me. "And consider the possibility that what you thought you knew is not the truth."

"The truth," I say through gritted teeth, "is that he sent his wife and baby to the US from Austria in 1940 with promises that he would follow them. But he never got the chance because he was taken to a camp in 1941 and died in 1943. It's all on record."

"Records that were manipulated," he says and he actually smirks this time. Like I'm just slow on the uptake. "I know this is personal for you but you have to open yourself to this."

"You're god damn right this is personal," I spit. "That baby? That was my mother. And this man you're talking about, my grandfather, he was murdered by Nazis. He was a brilliant psychiatrist and cared for people. He didn't hurt anybody. He only helped them."

"He told me what happened," Barnes says but I start to shake my head when he tells me the story.

"He told me about sending away your mother and grandmother, that he didn't want to but had to. He could sense what was coming. When he was taken he gave up any hope of seeing his family again. He was brought in by HYDRA after being in the work camp for two years. They gave him the chance to live, but at the expense of being classified as having died in the work camp. He chose to live, and was assigned to work on me."

I put my forehead down on the table and take a long breath. I think I might throw up. This is to impossible, but then there's a man with a metal arm sitting across a table from me in a covert superhero tower facility and I'm calling him a liar and accusing him of telling impossible stories. It's all too much.

"Let's say you're telling the truth," I say slowly, not picking up my head mostly because I don't want to look at Barnes. "Let's say that my grandfather was part of the group responsible for why you are the way you are, that still doesn't answer why I'm here."

"His was the only name and connection that I had to maybe finding someone who might be able to help me." He sounds tired and resigned, probably sensing the fact that I'm already thinking about how to get out of this place and as far away from him as I can.

"I have to go," I say and make a mad grab for the things on the table. I manage to grab hold of the file and the paperwork but leave the recorder behind. I'm rushing to the door and don't see Barnes' face as I go but I can feel his pleas and when I get outside and collapse against the closed door I hear a cry from inside the room that sends chills through me. It's one of frustration, sadness, and defeat.

**I hate it. **


	6. Chapter 6

I make it about fifteen minutes alone in the tiny apartment before I start to feel the walls close in on me. I thought that taking a little time to myself might help stop the spinning in my head that I feel whenever I start to think about what Barnes' said to me. But instead of helping, all I end up doing for those few minutes is pace in front of the window and glance anxiously around. His words are bouncing back and forth in my brain and I start to feel like I can't breathe, like the room is getting smaller, and that I will break into a million tiny pieces and scatter on the floor. I know that's panic, and if I give in to it it might be the end of me.

So instead I do what my instincts tell me. I grab my bag and I get the hell out. When it comes to fight or flight responses I am definitely among those who default to the latter, a habit which has kept me out of reasonable trouble for most of my life. I employ it once again as I'm trying to be as stealthy as I can in this Tower, making my way down to what I assume is a ground floor and my path outside. I need to get out of this place. It's not that it's completely unpleasant, just a little sterile with all the clean white lines and tiled floors. The windows everywhere help it's overall feel, but right now I need to breathe fresh air and as far as I can tell none of the windows around me open to the outside.

My elevator opens on to a high-ceilinged lobby and I pull myself as close to the wall as I can to avoid being seen by any cameras they may have posted. I skirt along the edge of the room and make it to the doors and through before I let out the breath I didn't know that I'd been holding in. I press forward and dive into the crowd of people passing on the sidewalks and lose myself in the anonymity of the city street.

It's refreshing to be outside in the early autumn sunshine. The further I travel from The Tower the more relaxed I start to feel. I let my feet carry me along and know where I'm headed without having to think about it. There's something I need and I know exactly where to find it.

It takes me a solid hour to get to my apartment, a hole in the wall place on a quiet street. It's been my haven ever since I took up residency at NYU, and when I ascend the stairs inside the building I feel the familiar blanket of safety that always comes over me when I'm home. Standing outside my door I hold perfectly still and listen for any stray sounds, thinking that if someone was following me I would hear the shuffle of their feet or their attempts to stay hidden from me. I don't hear anything but the normal noise of the building and I slip quietly through my door and am alone in my place before I know it.

Everything is just as I left it. My bed made, clean dishes in the drainer beside the sink, and a notepad on the counter with a reminder to myself to pick up milk the next chance I get. It's like my life is just paused and I can feel myself completely relax as I stand in the quiet enjoying the feeling of the familiar. I need a moment to take it in before I attend to the task I've come for.

I drop my bag and head to the wooden chest that's at the end of bed and take a deep breath of the cedar scent when I throw open the lid. It was handed down to me and I keep my precious memories inside, those things I can't trust anywhere else.

I pull out the family album and flip to a few pages in, where I collected all the photos I could of my grandparents and mother before they were split apart by the war. There is one formal family picture, of all three of them, one of my mother and grandmother, and then what I think is a candid photo of my grandfather at a large desk in an office, surrounded by high bookshelves filled with tomes. I take out that picture and flip it over to trace the date written on it. _1939. _The year before the split. The year that the continent erupted into chaos. He looks so peaceful in the picture and I understand why it was one of the few that my grandmother had chosen to bring with her. It was the picture that inspired me to follow in his footsteps, except my path differed along the way to head into neurology instead of psychiatry.

I dig deeper in the chest and at the very bottom I find what I consider to by my most prized family posession: my grandfather's notebooks. They were pressed hastily into my grandmother's one free hand that she wasn't using to hold on to her infant daughter as she boarded one of the last trains that would take them out of Austria and into temporary safety until they could get to America. She'd told me that he had said over and over that they may come in handy, that she may want that piece of him someday. Up to that point they hadn't spoken of the possibility that they may never see each other again, it had remained the unacknowledged elephant in the room. They're a set of three notebooks, page up on page of hand written notes on patients, studies, and assorted research. It's all written in Austrian and I've never had the inclination to try and translate them, though many times I've sat with them and thumbed through, trying to feel closer to him in some way even though I had never met him.

When I hold the notebooks close to my chest, pressing them against my body, I feel like I can absorb their secrets. I figure that now is as good a time as any to begin the long process of sorting through the pages of my grandfather's work, that maybe it will give me some insight into what happened to James Barnes.

I'm packing the notebooks and my family album into my bag when there's a knock on my door. It startles me and I stand up straight and just stare at the door, confused beyond belief. Nobody knows that I'm here. I creep to the door, avoiding every squeaky floorboard and sidle up to the peep hole in the door. Two men in black tactical clothing are standing outside the door, and I know that if I open the door they'll be inside my apartment before I know what's happening.

"_You have to be fucking kidding me,_" I whisper to myself as I back away from the door. I glance around the apartment and decide again that running away is best. My bag is in my hand and I'm halfway out a window on to the fire escape when the two men knock again. They're calling my name but it barely reaches me as I descend. I get down and drop myself onto the street, but I don't make it ten feet before someone grabs me and pulls me into a side alley. I'm pushed up against the wall and register the red hair and severely annoyed face of Natasha.

"What are you doing?" She says, her voice even and serious and I know she's not messing around.

"I wanted something from my place," I start to explain.

"You're being reckless and stupid," she says and eases away from me only when she's sure that I'm not going to run away.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm going to assume that you don't always take the fire escape," she says, glancing back up at my windows. My silence is all the answer that she needs.

"Come on," she says, beckoning me to follow her. I do, but only because I don't want to end up shoved against a wall again. We move quickly down the block and slide into a waiting car, driven by someone I don't recognize. I get in the back and Natasha takes the passenger seat, turning around almost immediately to start in on me.

"I'm not a babysitter," she states. "So the next time that you decide to just wander off it'd be best if you could clear it with someone."

"I don't need anyone's permission-" I start in, but I'm cut off by an exasperated look from Natasha.

"Here's the thing," she says. "Those guys up there, they're looking for Barnes. He was quite the valuable asset for a long time and there are those who would do anything to find him again. It's a good thing that we got to him and you before they did.

"Now, you need to understand that you can't just leave. If you want out, we'll make that happen, but you can't just walk away on your own. It doesn't work that way anymore."

Her words take their time sinking in, but I just let them push me into the back seat as the weight of what she means takes hold. She shifts back in her seat and throws a look at the man in the driver's seat who just smirks at her.

My life as I knew it is over.

My day comes full circle as I stand outside Barnes' room again, this time in the warm evening light that streams down the hallway. I hate being resigned to a fate that I never asked for or a new reality that was unceremoniously thrust upon me, but here I am. And since the flight scenario hadn't panned out the way I had intended, I might as well get used to the idea that I am stuck. But I'm not alone.

When I open the door, I move slowly and with caution, remembering the stricken cry I'd heard that morning and unsure of whether or not Barnes was still angry with me. I find him sitting on his bed again, staring at the window and holding the little recorder in his hands. I hear my own voice coming from it, gently prodding him with questions. He doesn't look at me, but instead let's the recording play out and and then rewinds it to listen over again. It makes me cringe when we get to the end, when the voices suddenly stop and I know that we were interrupted and what follows. But he rewinds it again and listens all over. Again and again we listen to the recording, not saying a new word to each other but letting our digital conversation fill the space.

I walk over to the window and look out on to the city, but the view has changed and it feels like I am far away from the little home I'd made for myself. Like even though we are just above them, we can't reach out and be a part of that world any more.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I say into the room. Barnes stops the recorder and lets me talk.

"I know I can help you," I continue, "but I need you to help me, too. Everything feels like it's just spinning out of control and I don't know even know who I am let alone who my family is. But you do. You know him. You knew him. I mean, if I help you then you can help me. We help each other."

******He nods at me. I smile just a bit. It's a tenuous agreement, there's no doubt about that, but it's all I can count on at the moment. **


	7. Chapter 7

To begin, I remind myself that the recommended treatments for memory recovery and brain healing are often based in the same thing: routine. Routine helps to stabilize the wobblers, those teetering on the brink of oblivion and those who need reassurance when stepping into the haze that's become of their memories. Right away I establish a routine with Barnes.

After that first day, I put him through a battery of tests to establish his overall physical health and his neurotransmitter levels. I need to know how his body is functioning as it will influence how his brain will respond to treatment. If the rest of the system is stressed, the treatment won't be as effective. The Tower has an entire medical wing, though I'm hesitant to question its necessity, I don't push the issue when I'm presented with pristine lab equipment and state of the art diagnostic technology. There's a few others who work there, another physician, a few nurses, and some lab support staff. One woman, Elsa, has assigned herself to see to all my needs when it comes to the tests that I run. She's a steady hand with her work and I trust her discretion. I don't need a gossip on my team.

We spend our mornings in Barnes' room, trying to piece together the things that he remembers for certain. I bring him a stack of notecards and he writes his name on one and tapes it up on the wall next to the picture of him in uniform from his file. I purposefully don't give him the one of him in cryo, thinking that that image can wait until we build him a positive and solid foundation. Other things that come up, tiny details, go on other cards and on to other places on the wall. He spends a lot of time sitting on the floor looking at his ever growing map of fragments and trying to make connections between them. I keep recording the sessions and every day he seems to be able to string together more things, but there are still large gaps between them, mostly concerning the man that I know is Steve, but is a stranger to Barnes.

"He was my friend?" He asks me one day, a bit shakily, and when I tell him yes he writes it down on a card and tapes it up. He mutters it to himself a few times, letting it cement in his mind.

We don't talk about the bad things, even though I can feel that they're right under the surface. Some mornings when I arrive I find him sitting in the corner, dark circles under his eyes, and playing our conversations over on the recorder. He's running from the darkness that comes every night and threatens to pull him back to places he would rather not go. These days I sit next time him on the floor and sip my cup of coffee that I bring and nibble on ends of toast from breakfast. We don't say much, I just let him work it out and bring himself back with his own voice and truth from the recordings.

I spend the afternoons digging into the notebooks, it's slow going as my Austrian is rudimentary and trying to piece together someone else's trains of thought can be difficult even if you speak their language. But I am making progress nonetheless. I'm also getting used to living in the Tower, my rooms are more familiar and I am getting the hang of how communal the living spaces feel with a shared main kitchen and cafeteria for those of us working on the upper floors. I have come to know the others who live here, though I don't always interact closely with them. I still see Steve and Natasha, though she spends most of her time with the man who'd picked us up at my apartment the day I ran.

Two weeks into my stay, I am just packing gathering my bag and breakfast to head down to Barnes when Steve comes over to my usual table in the cafeteria. He has something in his arms and he's looking very excited.

"Morning, Alina," He greets me.

"Ah, Steve," I say with a little smile. "Good to see you've been keeping yourself busy." I give him a nod in recognition of his effort to give me space to work with his friend.

"Yes, Ma'm" he replies and holds his bundle out to me. "This is for you. Well, it's for Bucky, James. For both of you. I think it'll help."

"What is it?" I take what feels like a garment and a small remote control.

"It's a specially designed fabric that can deflect magnetic fields," he answers. "I don't really know how it works, Stark created it, but you turn it on with that thing and it makes magnets not stick to whatever metal is covered by the fabric."

I realize that what I'm holding is a shirt and a glove that are a knit of black fabric with a hint of metallic sheen in the weave if I hold it at the right angle. The remote is simple, and I hit a button and feel the garment almost humming in my hands. If it can deflect magnets this means one thing…

"I can give him that MRI!" I exclaim, probably more excited than I should be, but the very real prospect of seeing high definition images of the damage inside Barnes' head makes me almost giddy, in an admittedly strange way.

"This is great," I say and throw my arms around him, throwing him off balance for a moment. "It's really going to help. I'll let you know how it all goes but this is great." And for the first time since this began I feel really hopeful. It took some work, but an hour later I've managed to convince Barnes that the tech fabric idea has merit and that he just has to trust me.

"This is going to make it a lot easier to see what's up there," I tell him. He looks doubtful.

"Are you sure about that?" he says, his voice low and he slinks down the hallways beside me. He's still nervous whenever we leave his room to go to the lab, aware that people know who he is even if he still isn't sure. We don't run into anyone this morning though and make it to the medical wing where we meet up with Elsa who leads us back to a room with dimmed lights and the hulking MRI machine. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning, Barnes just looks sullen and unsure.

"I need you to put this on," I say and hand him the shirt and glove that Steve gave me. He rubs the material between his thumb and forefinger, measuring it's weight and heft. I don't have time to turn around before he's stripped his shirt off and thrown it onto the counter, leaving him bare-chested in the middle of the MRI lab. I'm caught off-guard by his body, even though these last weeks I could tell that he was muscular, 'stacked' even if you wanted to go that far, but to see the definition of his chest, abs, all the way down to the v of his lower stomach that disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants that are slung low on his hips catches me right in the solar plexus and for a second I don't think I can breathe, and neither would any red-blooded woman with a pair of functioning eyes for that matter.

He catches me staring at him, but instead of saying anything he just looks at me, his face a blank slate. I wonder if he's been looked at like this before, like a thing of desire instead of just a weapon.

"Sorry," I mutter quickly, turning away from him before this gets really embarrassing for me, but I know that the hot feeling in my cheeks means I'm already blushing and it's too late to worry about whether I've bruised my ego or not. He puts on the shirt and glove, covering every inch of his metal arm. I take out the remote from my bag and press the on button, noting that he looks down at his left side when I do. He must feel that same little hum I did.

I have him lie down on the table top that will slide into the machine and move back so Elsa can slide a folded towel under his head, one under his knees, and finally secures a pair of noise-blocking headphones over his ears. When she moves to fasten the head coil, or "bird cage", meant to keep his head from moving, I see his breathing start to change from a regular rise and fall of his chest to something erratic. His hands, kept resolutely by his side, are curling into fists that he's clenching repeatedly. I move quickly, sensing that he could lose control, and go to his right side. I put my hand on the middle of his chest, and find his heartbeat slamming against my palm.

"Hey," I say, trying to get his attention, but my voice must be muffled because of the headphones so I tap my palm on his chest and he looks over at me. His eyes are filled with fear and his mouth is set in a hard line like he's trying to control himself but losing the battle that rages in his reflexes.

"It's ok," I lean in close and say next to where his ear is. "I'm right here. I'm right here." I tap him again on the chest and he opens up his mouth to gasp a huge breath. His whole body is tense with anxiety and I press my forearm along his torso, my hand still on his chest and try to comfort him with the touch. I keep repeating my words, _It's ok, I'm right here_, and eventually his breathing seems to steady out, his muscles lose some of their rigidity, and his heart settles down. When I look back into his eyes again, their blue depths are shimmering with tears and it breaks my heart.

Despite all the power that his body possesses, his fear of the machine reduces him to little more than a shaking child underneath my touch.

"It's all right, James," I say, and it feels good to say his real name, like it eases both of us in the moment. "I'm not going anywhere." When he nods at me, I look over at Elsa who just shrugs at me and sits down at the controls of the MRI to begin. As the table top slides into the machine, my hand runs down James' chest and arm where I catch his hand as his upper body disappears into the magnetic chamber

while

the machine starts to whir and come to life. Our fingers lace together and he keeps hold of me with such strength it's like I'm the only thing keeping him from completely falling apart.

For all the impression I'd gotten at first that he was an enemy, someone to be wary of, now I saw that he had been tortured and twisted into this hazy world of confused right and wrong, a place where he had come to expect punishment and pain from doctors and those who handled him. My mind brings up the pages from his file of the machine they'd used to wipe his memories, to send electrical pulses through his brain that were targeted at his hippocampus, meant to erase his past so they could plant a version of the truth and twist him to do their bidding. I feel sick to my stomach and have to force myself not to cry. As gut wrenching as brain trauma has been to work with, this is the worst.

It takes almost an hour to complete the scans. My arm is stretched out at a slight upward angle and even though I lose the feeling in it, I don't let go of James' hand for one second. I know what it's like inside that thing, and I can't abandon him to whatever memory took hold of him before. He needs the connection to the present to stay calm and focused. But while we're locked together like that and I'm watching his chest rise and fall, I can't lose the image of his frightened eyes staring up at me, begging me for help.

At one point I reach up with my other hand and put in on his wrist, trying to lift myself a little to get into a more comfortable position, and then eventually I lay my head on my arm which cuts off even more blood to my already numb hand. But I don't care. There's no way I can back out now or else I risk being forever haunted by those eyes. I stay where I am because he needs me.


	8. Chapter 8

When the scan is finished, Elsa shows me the images on the computer and I ask her if James and I can stay for awhile to look them over. She agrees and sees herself out after assuring me we will have privacy. What I'm really after is the calm atmosphere of the room now that the machine is shut down. The dim lights and silence are soothing and I think it will help James to calm down more. He's sitting on the sliding table, shirtless again after having stripped off the tech shirt once we'd let him out of the head coil. His body had been covered in sweat and he'd paced the room a couple times, running his hands through his hair and pressing his fingers to his temples.

That agitation I could deal with, but this quiet repose that's been going on for nearly forty-five minutes makes me nervous. I spend the time going over the scans and printing out certain ones to add to my file and to compare to his initial CT scans that were given to me. Every so often I glance up at him, trying to read his expression, but it doesn't change. He just keeps staring off into space.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I finally ask. James shakes his head slowly a couple times, but lets out a long sigh like he's resigning himself to the necessity of the task. I roll my chair closer to where he sits, moving easily over the tile floor.

"At first," he starts, "they would strap me down to a table, wrap my head with connectors, and then stick a rubber guard in my mouth. That's all there is now, the taste of rubber, pain in my whole body, and a smell like burning hair but not quite that. I know what that smells like." His words make me feel cold but I make an effort not to react.

"There was a cycle: cold, pain, a mission, and then back to cold. When she put that thing over my head, I could taste the rubber and feel myself being held down even though there wasn't anything keeping me down. I kept expecting the pain but it never came. My body just reacted on it's own, I couldn't control it and then suddenly it was like the room was spinning and I kept thinking that it would hurt, hurt, hurt like before. When I'd wake up, completely blank, not knowing where I was, Eli was always there. He'd tell me everything was ok, lean over where I lay and look me in the eye. His eyes were always the first thing I'd see and his voice to go along with them would calm me down.

"They got better at it," he says. "Mixed in there's flashes of blue light and restraints that work on their own, no need to fasten me down by hand, but every time I woke up blank and alone, still I'd be searching for Eli's voice and eyes, even though I didn't know exactly that's what was happening. I don't know when he died, but after he was gone I felt it wasn't worth holding on to anything anymore. They never told me what happened but I knew that he wasn't coming back. Being alone was worse than anything I'd felt before.

"When I felt your hand on my chest and looked up at you I thought I was looking back into his eyes, and then I could hear you, that everything was ok, and I felt pulled back to myself."

It's the most words he's strung together in our weeks in the Tower, and I am shocked to hear it come forth. It's as if confronting the deep fear of the wiping had broken through a wall inside him. Despite the assault on his mind, it had managed to put up walls around those things that would comfort him when the attacks came again.

"They used a perversion of electroshock therapy on you," I tell him. "It's a treatment for psychosis that causes you to lose memories before that trauma. It disrupts the flow of messages in your brain, the way the memories are communicated across the different parts of your brain that do different things. The amnesia effects don't tend to last that long, especially during it's heydey but yours seem to go much deeper, like they pushed the technology further into your mind than it ever had been before."

I let that settle down between the two of us, and I don't like that I've insinuated that he was a guinea pig to be experimented on and twisted into a new form, but I can't take it back now.

"Your brain needed the comfort you got from him," I murmur more to myself than him, but he picks up on it.

"The brain has an immense capacity to hang on to things that have been associated with strong emotional or traumatic events. Those are our deepest memories and connect to parts of ourselves that are part of our basic instincts for survival. They had to dig deeper and deeper to suppress parts of your past, but it bypassed the memories of my grandfather."

I push myself back to the computer and turn the screen so James can see clear image of his brain that I had been staring at. He locks on to it like I'm giving him a lifeline.

"See this?" I point to the image, "These are what I showed you that first day. The part of your brain where memory is stored is shriveled, beat up, after being bombarded all those times. But they're still there, they can come back. This gives me hope for you. You should have it, too."

And then he smiles at me. Not a big one, but just enough that I know that he believes me, that he trusts me.

"I want to start you on a series of injections of a medicine to help things get going up there," I continue. "It helps to strengthen the memory connections in your brain. I think it will help. There's an experimental synthetic version that they use at my hospital and if I can get permission I can get you a supply."

As it turns out, it's not difficult at all to get the permission I need. Steve was an easy sell, and I left it up to him to convince Natasha and whoever else they see fit to break me into the hospital. It feels very illegal, but that's only because it is, and I think that just a few weeks ago I wouldn't have pegged myself as someone who would be neck deep in this world. It makes me smile to think I am still full of surprises.

The logistics of what I'm asking turns out to be more complex than I had thought. There has to be a plan to get in, a plan to get out, and most important there have to be several of what they keep calling "options". I am grilled repeatedly about the layout of my unit, the labs where I'll find the medication, and about the security systems. Natasha and the man who had picked us up at my apartment, he introduces himself to me as Barton, tell me that it's all rudimentary stuff and that they will have no problem getting me in. I ask why Steve isn't going, he always seems to be more than willing to help if it's a project for James, but he is in the background this time.

When I tell them I want to bring James with me, that he knows the hospital as well, they balk at the suggestion. He's "too unpredictable" they insist. But I push back, not admitting that they might be right, but I remind myself and them that he stalked me in that building and knows how to keep himself hidden there. He has the experience, why not make use of him?

It's with great reluctance that they agree.

So a few days after the MRI, after we have gone over the plan several times and I've been made to promise to keep close and not stray from my escort, I find myself being driven across the city from the Tower towards the hospital that I had willingly given so much of my life to. James sits beside me in the back seat, he's sitting in the middle of the seat, as far from the windows as he can but watches the world go by intently. He's promised me that he can handle himself and that I don't have to worry about him being overcome by memories.

"There's no hidden traps there," he says in a flat voice. He's taken to calling emotional or memory laden places or topics "traps". We avoid them most of the time but other times we throw sticks into their jaws to see them snap and James will confront his memories that are trickling in. I'm glad now though that we won't be dealing with that tonight. This situation is part of his present, the place that he is most sure of himself since there is no haze that obscures the details. The present is clear.

"This is kind of exciting," I lean over and whisper to him, but when he turns to me his face is completely neutral and I realize what I'm saying. Stealth and it's accompanying adrenal rush were a part of his life before he came to this juncture. I must seem like a silly child to think it's fun.

"Sure," he answers and then goes back to watching the world slip by.

It's just after one in the morning when we turn into an alleyway that runs behind the hospital and we leave the car to travel on foot down the alley and to a doorway leading to the back stairwells. Natasha leads James and I, with Barton bringing up the rear. They still don't trust James but it's probably best for some of us to have a healthy dose of skepticism running through their veins.

Natasha picks the outer lock on the door and eases it open just enough for us to slip in sideways. The stairway is silent, and deserted. Just as it always is at this time of night. Most importantly, it's so far out of the way of normal patient traffic that the administration didn't feel the need to keep cameras going at all times, the middle of the night being one of those dark periods. Silently, the four of us ascend, moving only with hand signals and exchanged looks to guide us. We've been over the layout so many times that I'm sure we could accomplish this task in our sleep.

We climb to our floor, and when I open the door slightly my heart skips a little to see my hallways that will take us down to the offices and labs. It takes everything I have not to throw open the door and head out to my familiar territory. But instead I wait while Natasha messes with a small tablet, punching codes and grabbing at small display screens that fly up before her eyes. I have no clue what she's doing, but her eyes dart back forth so quickly over the scrolling figures that I'm sure her brain is working ten times faster than ours.

"Got it," she mouths whispers. She's taken the hallway security cameras hostage and is streaming more looped footage of deserted hallways down to the servers.

"It's scary sometimes how good you are at that," Barton says and elicits a smirk from Natasha. James doesn't say anything, just waits with a quiet calm and watches me looking out the small crack in the door.

We leave Natasha behind in the stairwell, she will monitor the cameras and keep track of our progress on a the feed that she's diverted through her filter of the loop. If at first I'd held reservation about her, I am in awe now. She commands respect with her quiet control and her lack of showboating over her skills. She's not just smart and capable, she's _fucking _smart and capable.

The carpeted hallways muffle our noise and we move quickly through the building towards my unit. When I lay eyes on it I feel like I'm coming home, and a sense of safety washes over me. This is my turf, more so than my apartment even, this is my place. I lead us to the lab where we stop at the door and wait for a few seconds until I hear a tiny *click* of the key card lock being disengaged. unlocked by Natasha's electronic hand.

Inside it's cool and supremely peaceful. This is where my colleagues do research for our department, searching for new treatments and potential cures for brain damage. There's a hallowed air to the place, mostly due to the understanding that most of our experiments are done on mice, little guys who have no say in our decision to shoot them up with different concoctions and then dissect their brains to look for any changes. When you're doing something like that you have to take your work seriously.

James hangs by the door while I move through the space with certainty, knowing exactly where to find the tiny vials of synthetics I'm keen on treating him with. I find them in the fridge, unopened packs of them stacked neatly in rows. I grab two packs, enough for months of treatment and pocket them. I don't need syringes, they have plenty in the Tower med unit, and head back towards where James waits for me. Barton seems on edge, and keeps swiveling his head around like he's trying to see in all directions at once. It reminds me of an owl and I smile a little at the thought. As we're passing the doors to neuro, I suddenly veer off towards them, intent on picking up a few books from my office.

"Hey," Barton hisses at me, "don't break protocol."

"It's fine, I'll be thirty seconds, tops," I throw over my shoulder and head down the short hall to my door. I leave the two of them behind and go into my office to the bookshelf and pull a couple volumes I'd been missing the last couple weeks. There's no sign that anything in the office has been disturbed, even my coffee mug still has the residue from the cup I'd had the night I'd been taken. Again I'm so sure that we're alone on the floor, that I don't think to close my door.

Apparently I am a slow learner.

My head hits the wall, squarely on my hairline above my right eye and I see stars fit to burst. I'm pushed again into my desk and someone grabs hold of my left wrist and slams it onto the hardwood, the sensation of snapping ricochets up my arm and I cry out from the sharp pain that accompanies what I suspect is breaking bone. I try to move but a hand on the back of my neck keeps me pinned down.

"Where is he," a smooth voice cuts through my pain. It's detached, almost as if it's bored in the face of the pain I'm being caused.

"I don't know," I manage to say.

"Where is the asset?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I try to scream but fingers lace around my throat and start to squeeze. I'm going to die and my friends, _my friends_, are just outside and don't know what's happening. I'm pulling at the air like a fish out of water and the edges of my vision are just starting to go black when I can suddenly breathe again. The hand is ripped away and I hear a crack and a thud and I push myself up to support on my one good arm, pulling my injured left wrist against my chest to protect it.

When I turn around, I see James standing over a man in the same black gear as the ones before, but his head is twisted at an unnatural angle. James is staring down at him, his breathing even, not even looking like he's done anything out of the ordinary. But I get a sick feeling in my stomach that the man on the floor won't be getting up anytime soon.

"Are you all right?" James asks me, but when he looks up he doesn't look me in the eyes, instead his gaze goes to the place just above them and I feel a warm slick spot with my fingertips. They pull away, covered in blood, and I feel the rush through my body and the faint comes quick. I fall, into the darkness that consumes me and give in to the internal scream that had been trapped in my throat.


	9. Chapter 9

I come to and my head is resting against metal, slightly warm and emitting tiny clicks and whirs near my ear. A light smell of oil and moving parts fills my senses. I'm moving but my body is lying out and against something hard, another person, and their breathing comes fast. There's pressure on my forehead, a cloth that hangs over my eyes and when I finally open them a little all I see is fabric covered in blood. My head is throbbing at the point of the pressure and I think it might split wide open. I want to see where I am, but when I reach up to pull away the cloth I feel my wrist is immobilized on a makeshift splint. I don't know where I'm going, and whoever is holding me tries to pin my left arm against my side with their free hand, causing me to start writhing in a panic. My breath comes quick and shallow, hyperventilating and struggling even more despite the pain in my arm and my head. I just want to get away, I just want to know where I am, I just want to be safe again.

Muffled voices reach me, speaking in a language that is foreign to me but passed quickly between the man and the woman who exchange rushed words while I try to fight against being held. I'm starting to feel dizzy and then there's a voice beside me, thick and low and I go still while I lock on to what it's whispering.

"Be still," it says, gentle in my ear, "I have you."

A sharp sting in my upper arm makes way for a thick, warm sensation that begins in my arm and seeps down to my toes and slowly fills up my belly. My hands fumble with anything they get a potential grip on, but my fingers feel so thick and flimsy that all I do is push feebly at the unforgiving hulk I'm pressed against. But before the richly seeping warmth spreads all the way up my neck and into my head, my fingers find others, and I lace them together to create a tether that I will anchor myself with.

Quietly I give in to the seep and go limp in the arms of my assailant, my patient, my friend, and now my protector.

...

My eyelids feel heavy but I pull them apart and am met by soft light. I'm stretched out in a hospital bed, facing a window where morning sun is filtered through blinds and lands on my feet under light covers. My bed is surrounded by curtains that cordon off a small private area for me, and I orient myself by the little noises of the med wing that are familiar to me. Quiet footsteps on tile, a classical music station that Elsa listens to, and the scent of disinfectant and clean things. I think I'm alone, but someone beside my bed clears their throat and I turn to see Steve sitting somewhat rigidly beside my bed.

"Hi," I whisper. "We have to stop meeting like this." I try to turn my body towards him. It feels like it will take a great effort to move even a little bit, and I recognize the familiar numbness of high class painkillers.

"You had a bit of a rough night," Steve smiles. He leans in towards me and rests his head in his hands. "You've got a broken wrist and a pretty good knock on your head. You need to rest, make sure you don't have a concussion."

"Is it the same day?" I ask, and he nods in response. It starts to trickle back in, the feeling of not being able to breathe, the rush of fear and tears start to blur my vision.

"It's all right," he soothes. "You're safe."

"That man," I start, but finding the words to describe the certainty in my mind proves to be difficult. I take moment to steady myself.

"Was he going to kill me?" I say, my voice trembling. His smile fades and he doesn't have to nod or say anything for me to know the answer to the question.

"Did James kill him?"

He looks at the floor, his mouth pressing into a thin line and the space between his eyes wrinkles. He nods.

"HYDRA," the word tastes foreign in my mouth and I want to spit it out. "They won't stop, will they."

"No," he says, his voice resigned. "They won't."

He looks like he's preparing himself to give me bad news. A worry starts to crawl up my spine and I realize it should have struck me sooner that James wasn't here.

"Where is James?" I say evenly.

"You have an option," Steve says, again ignoring me and moving forward with the conversation. "If it's any consolation, we never meant for you to get hurt. We never meant for anyone to get killed. Enough people have died already and we don't need any more."

"I want to know where James is," I demand. "He's my patient and I want to know where he is."

Steve watches me, his brow furrowed, and I realize that he's measuring me against a picture of who he thought I was and who I am becoming. I feel changed, like my world has broadened to encompass new truths about who I am and I can't abandon my process now, which means not abandoning the man I am caring for. I must have seemed timid at first, maybe weak in their eyes, but I can feel another surprise coming and I have to stand up to the momentum of this life and take control.

"He's safe," Steve finally admits. "He'll start getting the medicine you want to give him, and we will keep monitoring his progress with his memories. But we can't keep putting you in harms way and right now wherever Bucky is is a dangerous place."

"So what are you saying," I try to sound annoyed but a slight crack in my voice betrays my suspicion of what he is going to say.

"We're going to move you," he says. His does it gently, breaking the news to me like he doesn't know if I will be relieved or furious. I suspect he hopes it will be relief, but that's not what I feel.

"No," I hiss.

"You'll be moved to a safe location and given a new identity, hidden from them and able to start again. It's the best option and it will keep you safe."

I keep shaking my head and stare at the ceiling, the window, my hands, everywhere but at him because I am going to cry at the sudden sensation at having failed someone that I care about. Because that's what makes me the most angry, thinking that I hadn't even scratched the surface of treating James Barnes before they're going to pull me and erase me from his life. It's just like what HYDRA did and I want to scream but somehow I keep my silence on that subject.

"How long do I have?" I manage to ask.

"Three days," Steve answers. He leans back in the chair and I go back to facing the window, not wanting to look at him anymore and instead decide to wallow in the unfairness of it. I don't know how long he stays with me, because honestly I stopped paying attention to him and just let myself drift on my waves of emotion. The light shifts over my blankets and I think at some point in the afternoon I doze off because in the late evening I'm awakened by a nurse who tells me I am free to return to my own apartment. She seems kind and seems to care for me but I decided earlier that they don't really care, that I'm expendable to them.

I wander back to my little corner and lay down on the bed to possibly sleep but instead I watch the sunset without moving. My left wrist, secured in a plaster cast, rests in front of me and every so often I glance at it and can feel the way the bones snapped on the desk. I have more meds for the pain, and would probably do best if I were to disappear into another drugged haze, but I can't bring myself to block this out.

The pink light from sunset shifts along the wall and I watch it make a path along the white, wishing I could curl into its warmth and forget what happened. But I've seen my face with its bruising on my forehead and line of even stitches that holds together where my scalp was split, and I've gently traced the line of small bruises on the side of my neck where the life was almost squeezed from me. These things will heal, I know they will, but how will I forget the way it felt to be held down and almost wiped out.

I work to bring things back, not to press them into oblivion. The humor at finding my self in this position is understandably lost at the moment and despite the pain that is returning to my broken bones, the majority of what I feel is a terrible sense of loss and disappointment at letting someone else down. It's this feeling that pushes me off the bed, reminds me to gather my things and guides me through the building to James' room.

I let myself in, his door is always unlocked for me but he never leaves unless he's with me, and I find him on his bed, listening to one of our conversations. I lean against the door and let myself slide to the floor, my bag crumpling beside me, and we lock eyes but don't speak. He's listening to a conversation we had about where we grew up, it's mostly me recounting stories from growing up in a farmhouse outside Davis, California and the sound of my happy voice drifting through the room pulls at the sadness that's settling into my chest.

"They're sending me away," I say into the void between us. And that's when I really start to cry. I collapse into myself in a little ball and cry for both the lives I am losing in this short amount of time. When the sobs begin to shake me, I feel those strong arms pulling me into them, the cool metal whirs and clicks, oil smell, and the comforting strength of the solid man that I will anchor myself to.


	10. Chapter 10

We sit for a long time on the floor, even after I have cried out everything I have and feel exhausted we stay wrapped together on the tile and lean against each other for support. I haven't cried like that in years. Long before James Barnes changed the momentum of my life, and back then there hadn't been anyone to comfort me with something as simple as an embrace. So now, when I didn't even ask for it, I find a balm in his arms. He hasn't asked anything of me while I've purged myself of the pent-up emotions. Just held me while I shook. .

"I should hate you," I say against his shirt where my cheek rests. I look up at him, at his dimpled chin that was resting on the top of my head and I have to push down the urge to run the tip of my finger along his jawline.

"There's still time," he says with a wry grin.

"I never wanted any of this," I mutter into the fabric. My eyes are starting to feel heavy but they burn a little from the tears so I keep them open.

"You brought me into this. You took me out of my life and dropped me into this world I never wanted to be in and I guess I should be angry at you and hate you. But that's the last thing that I feel. I don't know why and I wish I could explain it, but I don't hate you at all."

"That's good," he says with a slow laugh.

"You saved me at the hospital," I say. I feel him put his chin back down on my head and his arms tighten around me.

"I had to," he whispers against my hair. "I didn't always kill people. Sometimes I had to bring them back alive. I had to bring you back alive."

He pulls back slightly and looks down at the stitches on my forehead. His metal hand comes up and touches the row of tiny x's, gently palpating the healing wound. My heart is pounding but I focus on his eyes as they watch the actions of his fingers. It's strange to be touched like that, with such care, by such a powerful thing. He is capable of so much destruction on that account, but I hadn't allowed him the possibility to be so gentle.

I push away the thoughts that follow what he's told me about bringing people back to HYDRA. For questioning, probably. Torture, most definitely. I won't lie to myself that he probably had a hand in those activities. It would be foolish to think that they wouldn't make use of the skills they had given him.

"I'm sorry you got hurt," he says and moves his hand back around me. "I shouldn't have let you go off alone."

"I wasn't helping," I blush. "I shouldn't have deviated from the plan."

"Now you know better."

"Yeah," I say with a sigh. "Quite."

We're facing his wall of notecards and I study the extensive map that he's created with the fragments collected from his memory. What had began as a single card with his name on it has grown into a complex web of his life that he is trying to rebuild. I remind myself that it will take more time to sort it all out, that the process may never end for him, but the more he works at it the more things are coming to him. They don't come in trickles or flashes anymore, they seem to come in whole scenes that play behind his eyes. The cards are getting more and more cramped with his handwriting as he puts the scenes down. Sometimes he reads them to himself so he can listen to them later on the recorder. He's coming back to his life and mine is going to be erased.

"You know what I'm afraid of?" I ask him.

"What?"

"Being forgotten."

It's a few seconds of silence before he pushes himself up and walks over to the table where he scratches something on a card. I feel cold without his arms around me and I pull my legs close and try to keep out the chill. He moves over to the wall and stands in front of the center card, the one with his name, and when he moves away I see he's taped up a new card. I lean in and see my name written in clean lines on the card, neat and straight and permanent.

"There," he says and stands with his feet firmly planted, shoulders straight. "You're here. Never forgotten."

For most people, a promise of remembrance from someone who is recovering from amnesia wouldn't count for much. But for me, in this moment, it's enough to know that he's put me in a place where I can count on being remembered. I smile broadly at my card that is taped right next to his and he sinks his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels for a second, smirking.

It hits me like a ton of bricks, the yawn that breaks through my whole body and I try to hide my distorted face in my hands but it's no use. James comes over and pulls me to my feet and pushes me towards his bed, his warm fingers resting on the small of my back. I lay down in the sheets that smell like him and wrap myself in the thin flat sheet while he makes himself comfortable on the floor. The last thing I do before I fall asleep is rest the fingers of my left hand on his chest, letting the broken wrist hang down over the side of the bed.

I'm asleep in seconds.

It doesn't last very long. I'm in the middle of a dream, swimming in a lake towards the shore and can feel it is just out of my reach. I pull myself towards the shore, thinking that I am making progress, but my body loses strength and I sink below the surface. I reach upwards at the receding light but I keep sinking. My lungs are crying out for air, I want so badly to open my mouth and take a drink of air but I resist. It becomes unbearable, the pain and the darkness that closes in around me. Just as the darkness surrounds me and covers my eyes I open my mouth and the water floods in.

This is when I wake up. I gasp for breath, gripping the sheets and trying to pull as much air into my lungs as I can. My cheek hits a wet spot and I register that I'd been crying again in my sleep. I push myself back from the edge until my back hits the wall. My heart is racing and I struggle to calm it. Over the edge of the bed I hear James stir and he sits up, his head coming level with mine and he rubs the sleep from his eyes. He seems to know what's happening, probably because he's been through this enough times on his own, and he touches my elbow to bring me back to myself.

"Just breathe," he says through a poorly stifled yawn. "You're okay. You're safe."

We spend the night like this, I toss and turn but am too afraid to let myself fall completely asleep again, and James is there when I can't bear to close my eyes. He repeats my own words to me, that everything is okay and that he's right there, but I can't win against the fear. It's dawn and the room is filling slowly with light when I succumb to exhaustion and slip into a doze.

The morning comes on while I rest, gray and wet, and the soothing sound of rain hitting the window lulls my brain into a quiet state that lets me rest. I don't dream again, but I do register when James gets up off the floor and pulls the blanket I'd kicked off back over my curled body, and when he leaves the room I hear the click of the door opening and closing. It's the smell of coffee that finally brings me back, and I find James has snuck back in and is holding a cup of black coffee in one hand and a stack of toast in another, my usual breakfast. He sets them down on the table and I rise to meet him.

"So," I say as I pick up the coffee and then take a tentative pull, testing it's temperature before I commit to a generous swig. The drink hits my system and I can feel it begin to works it's magic, whether from placebo or not I don't care. I already feel a little better.

"So," he mimics me.

"I guess we keep working," I nibble at some toast, and settle myself at the table, keeping a hold of my coffee like it's my lifeblood. He smiles at me and settles himself across the table from me, just like at our first meeting but so much has shifted and changed between us that I'm not sure who is treating whom any more. I ask him to grab my bag, which sits within his arms reach and he stretches his long self out to grab it up. He grabs is by the strap but it's uneven and when he lifts it up the contents spill out on the floor. The notebooks end up in a heap and I scramble around the table to pick them up.

"I'm sorry," he says, flustered while he scoops up papers and pens and seems desperate to put them right.

"It happens," I tell him and grab the notebooks, but when I pick up one by it's spine, a couple sheets of paper that are folded in half and nestled in each other. They are different paper than what's inside the books, but when I pick it up I know instantly that they are just as old. I open them and the rest of the world melts away. It's a handwritten letter, I guess it's a first draft as some lines as crossed out and words replaced, written in broken english that makes my stomach fall and an icy feeling settle in its place.

James must sense the shift in me, because when I look at him his face shows nothing but concern.

"What's wrong," he says, not a question but recognition. My mouth just drops open slightly, and I don't know what to say.

I don't know how I can destroy what we've built.


	11. Chapter 11

_I would warn that used without discretion, the treatment could destroy the memory of the patient. But with support and guidance, the patient may know a new reality. A new self. Treatment of the violent may become cure in the most extreme case. Erase the past and give them a new future, build a new life, and become stronger as result._

The letter, a two page draft written to the editor of an academic journal, muses on a recent breakthrough treatment in psychotherapy that has come out of Italy and is sweeping the field. It acknowledges the flaws in the treatment, most notably it's propensity towards leaving the patient with a case of retrograde amnesia, but proposes it's possible uses in the treatment of the most violent and destructive patients. If you erase the past, you can create a new future where the person would be unaware of their previous indiscretions.

It was written in 1939 by Eli Buchman.

The letter sits on the table between James and I but it might as well have taken up the entire room. I feel a cold sick in my stomach, and I know I should say something comforting to him, but I don't have any words for this and all it implies.

"He didn't know what he was doing," I manage to say in a voice that is too fucking weak because I'm exhausted and drained and wish this was a dream and that I would wake up.

James stays silent, not fuming, but his face is slack and his eyes toil with an emotion that makes me aware of how much I have underestimated his ability to snap.

"Say something, please," I press. He looks me in the eyes and I shut my mouth.

"He knew exactly what he was doing," he spits out at me in a low voice. "He probably directed them, told them what to do. Told them how to get in there and play games with my mind."

I start to shake my head, begging him to stop.

"That's not possible," I crack.

"Oh, really? And you know this because you knew him so well."

"That's not fair," I snap. "You told me yourself they took him out of the concentration camp, gave him the choice-"

"That's what he told me. But how many times over the last few weeks have you felt everything shift because what you've been told your whole life was not the truth. He knew what he was doing. That's the truth."

I don't want to believe him, that what we thought about someone who appeared to help but rather was hurting on a level I couldn't even fathom. Someone who was my family, a part of me, it makes me want to throw up.

"I don't believe you," I whisper.

"Fine," he says and flips his hands in the air. "Think what you want. But in light of this new information, forgive me if I don't follow your lead."

I feel angry now, a hot sick rage at his dismissiveness.

"How can you turn your back on it," I push at him. "On everything that we've been working on. Just throw it away because you think that it was his idea. You forget what kind of people were twisting his actions, who he had to work for."

"You think I don't remember?" he leans forward over the table and I move away from him, truly afraid of the menacing look in his eye for the first time. "You think I don't have nightmares, too? And I'll bet mine are a hell of a lot more intense than yours."

He presses his hands against his temples and threads his fingers in his hair, the grimace on his face and his eyes closed tightly against the raging noise in his head push me into a corner in an effort to escape him.

"How can I trust any of this?" He shouts, throwing his hands at the wall with the cards on it. "Is that even real? How do I know what's real and what's not?"

"You can trust this," I plead with him, I'm pressing my palm against my sternum, telling him he can still believe in me. "Trust me and trust us. Whatever it is you feel deep down, you can trust that."

He's looking at me like I'm the last thing he wants to see right now, and I know it's because I remind him of _him_. Those eyes, that I have seen paralyzed by fear and seeking answers from the fog, that have held me in their gaze for moments that were stolen over our sessions and that I know will haunt me for the rest of my life are looking at me with such disdain and it is unbearable. Inside my chest, right where my heart is, a tiny crack opens up and begins to swallow me. I have truly failed him and it's breaking my heart.

James turns away from me and moves slowly towards the door. I am frozen at my place along the wall and can't do anything to stop him from leaving. I watch as he does, in some kind of horrible slow-motion that leaves me in a daze as he disappears from the room and leaves me.

He just abandons me.

I want to cry, but there's nothing left. This is the last flaking away of pieces of me that I could take into my new life, but with him leaving, there is nothing. I feel empty. I feel broken, shredded apart by a machine that I still don't fully understand and dumped by the wayside to wither and die. That's all that's left to do, is to waste away with just myself for company.

I move through the daze, pack my bag and shuffle back to my own studio. The air feels so heavy and when I get back to my place, I sink into the bed and feel like if I could I would melt all the way to the floor. I'm alone now, nothing left to do but wait until I am moved to my new life, wherever the fuck that will be, and then to fade away. The rain continues through the day, making little rivulets down my window and I watch them for awhile, then flip through the notebooks, laughing at myself for thinking they would help. I don't understand anything new about my grandfather or the life he had led. It was tantalizing at the time, but it was a fool's effort. I lose track of time, and end up sitting on my window seat watching the city move about it's business completely oblivious to me.

The gentle knock brings me out of the daze, yanks me up like a fish suddenly hooked from above. I breathe in sharply and it's like tasting the fresh oxygen for the first time. But I don't move, I watch the door and wait to see if the sound was just a figment of my imagination, a hopeful brain trying to comfort the grieving woman.

But there it is again, more insistent this time, and then my door knob begins to turn slowly. I should have locked it but didn't care enough to, and my body stiffens as the door swings open on silent hinges and James stands in the doorway, hesitating, then steps over the threshold. He closes the door behind himself and looks around and finally moves to the bed where he sits down and puts his head in his hands.

I don't know how he found me, how he knew where to go, and I don't care. I just care that he's here and that it feels like I have been pulled out of that dark place in the lake where I was drowning.

"I don't know what to do," he says, defeated. "Every memory is unsure, everything I've been taught is wrong, or maybe it's right, but it's still wrong in the context of the world. And I barely have anything to hold on to that will ground me. I don't want you to go, I don't want to lose what hold on myself I have because I have no one to help me."

I unfold myself from my seat and go to him, stopping just in front of where he sits. He reaches out and puts a hand on my waist, pulling me closer to him until I am standing between his legs. He rests his head on my middle and slides his hands around me until he's holding me again. I run my fingers through his hair, it's wet and he smells like rain, making me wonder where he's been. The water from his hair seeps through my shirt and my belly starts to feel cold but I won't leave him.

"I've done terrible things," he says, his words reverberate against the spot of my skin where his mouth is closest. "I am a bad person."

"Maybe," I say. "But everyone has things to atone for. You are not alone in that regard."

He looks up at me and smiles, and there are tears on his cheeks. I wipe one of them away with my thumb and he moves to bring me closer down to him, sinking into the warmth of his hold and I am so close to him, to the strength of him that I fear and admire all at once. He seems uncertain, waits for me, and I move carefully in and press my forehead to his. Our breaths collide and we hang suspended on the possibility until he leans in and catches my lips with his.

It's technically wrong, but so many things in this world are and I am beyond caring. I kiss him back, and together we tumble into the madness.


	12. Chapter 12

The first time, we fumble like true amateurs.

I don't know what to do with a casted wrist, he tries to keep his metal arm away from me. But we are driven into the act with urgency that pulses in our veins as our bodies press together and we try to take in as much of each other as we can. Our height difference doesn't mean much when we are like this but I scrape my toes along his shins before wrapping my legs around him and he rolls me with an easy push and swing from his limbs. I get lost in his mouth and hang on to him when it moves us and we both are spent too quickly. We're messy, hot and ragged in the tangle of sheets but he rests his head on my chest and I thread my fingers in his hair again, pushing it off his face and memorizing the way his breath feels on my hot skin.

When I wake up from another nightmare I don't have to go far to find him, he lies next to me on the bed, his flesh arm draped over my middle and I move myself further into the cave created by his draped arm. I don't tremble as much, and place my head against his chest to listen to the steady beat of his heart and hope that it will slow mine down. I plant tiny kisses on the scarred skin near his metal arm, trace the line where it meets his person with the tip of my finger, and wonder at the neural wiring that connects man to machine. My lips follow the path of my finger until I am at his collar bone and move to his jaw, his mouth again, and he takes my face in both his hands, placing his palms on my jaw and hooking his thumbs at the mandibular joint to hold me close.

He explores the geometry of my limbs, crooks of elbows and backs of knees and the way they bend and create angles under his ministrations. We fall into each other's eyes and swim in the pools of want that are overflowing behind them. Time stops, races, does a million things but we are unaware as we get lost in the sensation of knowing each other.

Dawn again, and I am sitting upright against the backboard, wrapped in a sheet and watching the sunrise. A clear day, my last full day, and I sink back down into the bed to wrap myself in my lover again. He draws me in and I fall back asleep to the cadence of our heartbeats.

…..

"I almost got married once," I say. I'm tracing the lines on his palm and he's watching the way sunlight plays through my hair that drapes over my shoulder. The digital recorder is sitting on my bedside table. He pulled it out when we woke up mid-morning, and we've been alternating between talking and exploring each other ever since.

"I was with a man, Paolo, an Italian in all the right ways," I smile at the memory of the tall, dark, classically beautiful man whose attraction to me had been somewhat baffling but still exciting.

"We were together at UC Davis, he studied art and literature, those kinds of things, while I was committed to premed. We met in one those core classes that they make everyone take and he came up to me one day after class and introduced himself. He said that he'd had a dream the night before that he and I were having a fight about whose turn it was to take out the garbage. It was the best line I'd ever heard and we became inseparable."

"What happened?" James asks between tracing lines along my shoulder with his lips.

"I got into medical school and he wanted to go back home. He asked me to go with him, to marry him, but I'd have given up everything I'd ever wanted to do with my life. I couldn't do that."

"And now you're here," he says and looks at me with something like sadness like he's sorry for this mess.

"Yes," I say and lean into him again. "I am here."

…..

"Your parents," he says hesitantly, my head close to his on the pillow.

"They died last year," I say, that wound can still be ripped open if I am not careful. "Killed last year by a drunk driver."

He turns and kisses my forehead, keeping his lips against the spot on my skin that burns from the contact.

"I'm the last of the line," I continue. "When I'm gone there will be no one left to remember my family. I don't want to give up my life because I will be leaving everything that I've ever known and no one will have any space for me in theirs. I will fade away and so will everyone who's been before me. We will cease to exist. That's why I'm so afraid of being forgotten."

"That's not going to be a problem," he reassures me. He trails kisses down my neck, his hands leading the way and the play of metal and flesh excites my brain and I play close attention to what his mouth is doing. I am pliable and vulnerable in his hands and he is exposed and gentle in mine. We are more alike in these hours than we had previously thought. Dead parents, forgotten friends, discovering one another and a potential future that is probably going to be ripped out from under us come morning.

But as he trails lower and lower, skimming the tips of his fingers on the inside of my thigh and my breath catches in my throat, I don't think of any other place that I want to be.

When the day is ending, and we are sitting across from each other at the tiny 'dining table' that is wedged into a corner of the room sharing a small meal, I wear his t-shirt and he wears little more than those low slinging scrub pants, I tell him that I am afraid for the morning to come.

"I don't think there's any way out," I admit.

"If you were to stay," he says slowly, pushing around the corner of his sandwich, "there's no guarantee that you would be safe. You'd probably have to stay in the Tower and hardly leave. Do you want that kind of life?"

I hadn't considered that aspect of it, but he's right.

"There's no guarantee I'll be safe wherever they send me," I counter. "If HYDRA wants to find me then they'll probably be able to find me. And to be honest I'd rather they do it if I am near you instead of far away."

He gives me that smirk and reaches across the table to take my hand.

"I don't have anything to give you. Whatever life this is is uncertain at best, but I want to build life with you in this place, or wherever we end up. I don't care. And I will protect you no matter what. No matter where we are. I promise."

We don't say it, but it's between us that we could love each other some day. The seeds of it are planted and together we could rebuild a life out of the ashes of our old ones. I squeeze his hand and when we go to bed that night we hold on to each other like we are sinking ourselves into the foundations that will stabilize the uncertainty of our future together. All that's left for us to do come the morning is to the fight for it.


	13. Chapter 13

"You have to calm down," James says to me. "You're making me anxious just watching you."

"Then don't watch me," I retort.

"Impossible," he says with a grin. It makes me smile like an idiot. I've been pacing back and forth next to the window for about twenty minutes, trying to fill the space with something other than our waiting. He's been sitting at a small desk in my cramped "office" in the medical wing of the Tower and looking through my brain books. Stopping only occasionally to ask a question, I think he's been most interested in the pictures and case studies that are highlighted. Earlier, I gave him his first shot of the compound we'd gone to the hospital for, a synthetic version of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF, that would help his brain as it heals itself during the memory rebuilding. A secreted protein in the brain, the BDNF boosts the brain's neural connections and synapses and supports the growth and establishing of new cells. We'd been experimenting with the synthetic in mice and it seemed to help their ability to retain new information and to bounce back after trauma. I figured it wouldn't hurt to try a round of it.

We've been in the medical wing most of the morning, waiting for Steve to come looking for me. James had wanted to confront him first thing, but I told him I wanted to wait for Steve to come to me. I know it's the passive aggressive way to deal with it, but I want to feel in control of the situation and this is as good as home turf as I can find. I feel in control in this setting and it helps to have James here. But I am still nervous as hell.

"Alina," James calls to reach me in my pacing and I stop in my tracks, taken abruptly by my name on his lips. "Come here."

He holds a hand out to me and I go over to the desk where I lean against it and he rests his hand on my waist. I press a hand to his cheek and he turns his head to kiss my palm but I swoop in and catch him off guard and press my lips to his. It's gentler than kisses we have shared in the past days but it settles the butterflies in my middle and I break it to scooch back on the desk and look down at the book he is studying.

"Do you feel smarter?" I ask him, my tone joking and give him a little push on his shoulder.

"Should I?" he muses. "Are you sure this stuff isn't going to make me stupider?"

"Well we'd be hard pressed to find someone to compare you to," I say and the side of his mouth turns up in that lopsided grin.

"I walked into that one," he says. I only nod. He drapes his right arm across my lap and keeps flipping through my book. His fingers linger over the pages, and he tries sounding out words for structures and processes but they sound so strange coming from him. My language gets fumbled in his beginner mouth.

"Why'd you pick this stuff, anyways," he says. He sounds almost like he's in awe of it and shakes his head a little as he looks up at me. I don't admit it to him but it's my favorite question.

"Brains are pretty cool," I say, I know it sounds lame and it makes James smile but I press on. "I mean, they're made of cells, and two kinds of matter, but everything that makes us who are as humans is locked up in that lump of protein. Our ability to be kind, to create art, to love, to build cities that last centuries, to nurture each other and to dream impossible things, is all locked up in there. But on the flipside it's all the bad stuff, too. Everything that makes us evil is there, too. It's a delicate dance of the good and the bad inside people and it all depends on what is turned on in your brain and what is turned off. Nobody knows exactly what controls it all, and that's oddly beautiful to me. We've been so obsessed with learning about the world around us and reaching out into space to explore far beyond our world, all the while forgetting the infinite universes that are inside our brain. It's just beautiful."

A pause stretches between us and he's looking at me like I've transformed before his eyes, probably because I have.

"You're beautiful when you talk about brains, you know that?" he says and we both laugh.

"It felt right, to go into this field, especially after what my grandfather did before-" I stop in mid-sentence and it hangs there. Before _what_. Before he was taken to a camp? Before he was taken by HYDRA? Before his work with James? It could be any one of those. But I have to define it or else it will poison the moment.

"It's okay," James says, releasing me from the responsibility of needing to clarify. It'll always be there and we'll have to learn to navigate these pot holes together. I have a feeling we'll manage, though. We stay quiet with each other and his thumb traces lazy lines where his hand rests against my side.

"Are you worried," I move forward with the conversation. "About seeing him again?"

James shakes his head, but he's staring off like there's more going on in his head than he wants to admit.

"I don't think I'll lose control," he muses. "But I don't know what will happen." Another thing that we will be dealing with: the unpredictability of what will surface when he encounters loaded situations that could send him into violent flashbacks. It's during our ponder of this when there's a knock on the tiny office's door and we both turn towards it. My body stiffens and James lets out a breath. We both prepare for jumping off this precipice in our different ways.

"Here we go," he whispers.

"Come in," I manage to say and James removes his arm from my body. I wish he would leave it there. The door opens slowly and Steve enters, his eyes settling on James and I and it seems to give him pause. He stays in the doorway and seems to need to brace himself by leaning against the door frame. He tries to do it casually but I can tell he still feels a shock when he sees his friend still alive.

"Bucky," Steve finally says. "Good to see you." James nods but doesn't say anything. He told me he wouldn't. He looks up at me, a sign to me that I need to make the first move.

"Steve," I say, and he looks my way. "I'm not leaving. I'm staying here and sticking to the plan."

He looks confused. Understandably so. So I take my opportunity.

"This whole time I've been pushed and pulled in different directions because of what other people wanted and I didn't have a choice in it. But this is my choice right now and I'm choosing to stay here and do what I can to help. I'm not going away and I'm not hiding. I need you to understand that."

Silence. Instead, he comes into the room and takes a seat at what would be a consulting chair, where a patient would sit when having bad news delivered to them. I stand to face him and James stays in his chair but there is an undeniable tension in the air around us.

"That's what you want?" Steve says, the doubt on his face clearly evident.

"Yes," I answer. I try to make my voice as strong as I can. It surprises me how steady it sounds, like it's not even me that is behind it. I have changed in these few weeks and draw a strength from a new place inside me.

"What do you think about this," Steve says to James, their differences seemingly set aside for the moment.

"She has a right to choose her life," James says. His eyes and voice never waver from Steve. "If this is what she wants, then she stays. It should be beyond us to choose people's lives for them." Steve's jaw tightens when James says this, because he can understand being the other side of the coin in those terms. That it's just as wrong to make the decision for someone else even if it's meant for good.

"And you know the risks, that we can't guarantee anything."

"You keep saying that, that you can't guarantee my safety or anything like that.," I say. "But I can be useful here, and I don't have anything else. I'm staying. And to be honest, even without you there's always a chance I get hit by a bus or something just like that so no one can guarantee my safety, really."

Steve does that thing again where he weighs me in his mind. His eyes drift from me to James and back to me, I wonder if he knows there's something between us and how much that is affecting my decision, I push that out of my mind and don't take my eyes off of him.

"If you stay," he says, "there is no going back to your old life. We take care of the details, but once I put those wheels in motion they can't be stopped."

"You think I could go back now?" I demand of him. "I can't walk away and pretend like this never happened. You all are in my life now whether I like it or not. I can't go back to trying to forget what I've seen here and pretending like it didn't have an impact on me. I need to be here. I need to be here just as much as anyone else. It's all that I have left."

I stop there because I didn't want to descend into begging. Steve actually looks sorry for me. His face is laced with pity and he lets out a long sigh, his body giving in to the answer that I want him to give me. But why does he pity me? Because I'm stuck in this life with the rest of them? Is it because there is a certain futility to what they do here in the Tower, always trying to stay one step ahead of 'the bad guy' even if that turns out to be your best friend? His pity could be for a thousand different reasons but I don't want to hear any of them.

"This is what you want," He says, but he's looking at James when he asks and when I say yes, I can see him resign himself to it. "This isn't a game, this place. And the world is so different than what you knew before, but we're all here for the same reasons. Just remember that."

He stands, and seems to hesitate a moment before holding his hand out to me and I shake it heartily. When he turns to James, his hand hangs in the air before James slowly raises his own and they shake once. I can feel the electricity radiating from James' body, I know that he's fighting the conditioning he underwent to see Steve as an enemy, as a target to be destroyed, but he manages to push through that weight and make it through to us.

"You know," Steve says, trying to keep things light. "You should really get a haircut. It might help you feel like your old self again." He winks at James and I smile.

When Steve leaves, James collapses on the chair and the effort it took for him to resist is clear on his face. I feel a sense of calm, that I am no longer in upheaval and that I can settle in. The uncertainty and fear are gone, replaced by a lightness I didn't think was possible. I put my hand on James shoulder and his skin is hot through his shirt, a byproduct of his struggles. I reassure that I am there for him, that I am not going anywhere.

He responds by pulling me in again, pressing his face to my belly and holding on to me as tight as he can. I kiss the top of his head.

"I like your hair," I whisper.

He laughs and the sound fills me.


	14. Chapter 14

_AN: Sorry for the delay in updates, life has a way of getting busy and has done so with great gusto in our neck of the woods. Thank you for your patience and understanding. :)_

I accept the severing of my old life when 24 hours later the contents of my apartment show up in the Tower, packed up neatly into boxes and delivered while James and I are out for the day. When we returned to find the stacks of boxes in the tiny studio that we had decided we would share, we had a moment of silence in recognition of the endeavor we were taking on. I dive into the process of unpacking, starting with my boxes of books that I start to stack on every available space that I can. James asks if he can help, but I shake my head and he respects my need to do this alone. Just for now I want a little bit of relative solitude while settling myself into this new nest. He takes one of the books and starts to read, reclining on the bed and losing himself quickly in the story. I relish the quiet as I unpack.

When the books are free, I push the cedar chest against the foot of the bed, it's rightful place. It's the only piece of furniture brought from the apartment but it's all I need. James catches me leaning against the wall and zoning out, and he snaps his fingers to bring me back. I stand up straight again and am caught by him, lounging on my bed and smiling at me over the pages of the book.

"Where did you go?" he says, his voice warm.

"Nowhere," I try to lie, but I'm sure he notices the way the word strains a little when I say it. He doesn't press me on it. If I want to talk about it with him then I will, he must know that as he just keeps watching me for a minute before closing his book and setting it on the bedside table. He moves with a level of quiet comfort in this space even though it's new to him. He walks like he's made of water, all cool confidence and physical presence in the moment. It must be a by-product of his training, but he seems most comfortable when he inhabits the present, like in the immediate he knows exactly what needs doing and who he is.

He leans in to me when he passes and runs the tips of his fingers starting at my hips, across my lower abdomen, to rest on the other while he places a kiss on my forehead. The gesture sends a wave of flutters into my stomach and I can't help but smile. He moves on without saying a word and heads towards the en suite bathroom, shedding his shirt as he goes and letting it drop on the floor. A smirk from him chases back at me as I watch his rippling back disappear into the tiled bathroom. The water runs and for a moment I debate whether to follow him, but in the end I choose not to.

Instead I dive into another set of boxes labeled 'clothes' and dig out a tank top and worn shorts, my preferred pajamas. The mix of the familiar clothing and possessions in the unfamiliar setting and the noise of a man showering up and preparing for bed create an interesting conflict in my head. I curl up under the duvet with the book that James had just put down and pick up where he left off. I have read it enough times that I know where the story is without having to start from the beginning. At least this part feels as it should.

That first night in what was now "our place", surrounded by my things, James crawls into bed with me after emerging from his shower and with all care and consideration we come together again in that way that is starting to feel like the most natural thing. His damp hair reminds me of our first time, his metal arm snaking around me and when his thumbs slip beneath the waistband of my pants I melt into a sigh and turn myself over to him.

Afterwards, I curl into his arms and fall asleep in the safety of our little world. We both sleep lightly, and whenever one of us tosses or turns, the other puts their hand on a back, an arm, or over fingers just to reassure that we are still there.

I sink into our routine, realizing that I need it just as much as James does, in order to keep myself on track. I have trouble if I am walking down the corridors by myself, my brain gets ahead of me and concocts threats that don't actually exist. Phantom footsteps, hands closing around me, and threats hissed in my ears all come at me when my mind is allowed to wander. One day when I am walking alone from the medical wing to meet James' at his memory map, I work myself up so much that I sit down in the middle of the cold hallway and press myself up against the wall as much as I can, trying to disappear into the wall. He finds me, however much later, with my hands pressed against my ears and my breaths coming shallow. I don't remember him picking me up and carrying me back to our place, or how he held me until my body relaxed and I fell asleep in his arms.

James tells me these details later in an effort to sway me to accompany him to the range, to start learning how to protect myself. It's not an idea that I am comfortable with.

"You might as well if you're going to be here," he says over breakfast in the general kitchen. The others are still wary of him, give him a wide buffer but slowly they have decreased it the longer we are here.

"I just don't think it's a good idea," I rebuff. "What if I panic again?"

"You have to learn to control your emotions," he says. "Fear is natural, but what you do despite the fear is key. Having options means you have control. You need to have options."

This is the reason I agree. He decides to throw me into the deep end, which is how I find myself shivering at the end of a long, underground range. There are eight lanes for shooting, and the whole place is pumped constantly with air-conditioned flow to keep the humidity down. I'm eyeing what looks like a standard, beginner level handgun sitting on the table by the firing line and it looks like it's going to be way too big for my hands. James stands beside me and picks up the gun, pulling back on the top piece and locking it into place.

"First, you pull back the slide," he says, referencing his beginning motion. "Lock it into place and check the chamber. There shouldn't be anything in there to start with. Then, insert the magazine into the grip, and pull back on the slide and release. You now have a live round." He picks up a magazine from the table and slides it deftly into the grip and pulls back the slide to release it and it clicks back into place. He points the thing down range and steps behind me, moving my arms up to take the gun and centering me in front of a target.

The gun feels lighter in my hands than I had expected it to, and I let him mold my fingers around the grip and press my index finger along the barrel of the gun.

"Don't put your finger on the trigger unless you know you're going to shoot," he says. I can barely hear him through the plugs in my ears to protect them from the shot indoors, but I can feel the calm beat of his heart against my back and try to sync mine with his.

"Breathe in, then on the way out, squeeze the trigger," he says and releases the gun fully into my hands. I take one breath, then inhale a second time and do as he says.

The gun almost jumps out of my hands. It's recoil sends a shock up my arm and I shake my head that I don't like it. Not one bit. A target only a few yards down range from us barely moves in the whisper from the passing bullet, still intact as I've failed to hit any part of it. I start to spin around, and James grabs my hand that is still wrapped around the weapon, pointing it down range. He shakes his head at me, as if it's the most pathetic thing he's ever seen but he's still smiling.

"You've got a long way to go," he says with a little laugh.

"Fine then," I say and extricate my hand from his and leave him holding the gun. "Since you're such an expert."

But he is an expert. Without taking his eyes off me he presses a button on the table and target moves down range with a whirring sound. When he releases it, he takes a small step back from me and then in one smooth motion he turns and aims down range, emptying the magazine into the target.

He doesn't even flinch.

When the sound of gunfire has subsided, he sets the gun down on the table and rolls his shoulders back, as if he'd just swatted at a fly. He moves the target back towards us and what becomes clear to me is the tight grouping of his shots. The group as a whole is no bigger than a quarter, each shot landing precisely over the heart where it would rip through the organ following the path of the first and tear it to bits before the victim would even hit the floor.

The silence that fills the range is so thick that I can barely breathe. James watches me, waits for me to say something, but when I am too stunned to do so, he leans down and whispers in my ear, "That's what they expect, and that's what they'll bring if you let them."

When he pulls away his eyes are flat, hollow almost, like he's on the verge of slipping into the mode of the warped soldier but is managing to hold on. That cold look frightens me to my core.

It's the first time that I doubt my decision.


	15. Chapter 15

He makes me shoot again, slow repetitions until I empty a magazine and he makes me learn how to load that with new rounds. Then it's two more times through the process until my target is littered with holes, I chalk that up to statistical probability that eventually I would hit it, more than an advancement of skill. We stop when I start to complain that my arms are hurting from holding up the weapon. My wrist has been bearing the brunt of the pain and when my whole arms are getting tired and strained from the effort I beg him to let me stop. I can tell it's on the tip of his tongue to say something about learning to work through pain, but he finally relents.

We leave the range and head back up to the daylight in the glass elevator in relative silence. Sometimes I think he prefers it that way. I lean against the glass that has some degree of warmth from the winter sun but is still cold to my touch, and stare at his profile as we rise above the city.

"You know," I say. "Now that I've done something for you, it's time that you did something for me." He looks at me with that lopsided grin and moves closer to me.

"And what would that be?" he drawls out as he stands in front of me and puts a hand on either side of me. I stay still, wanting to draw out his suspense. When he leans in and places a kiss on my neck just below my ear lobe, I close my eyes and tilt my head back to better reveal the soft skin to him. He plants tiny kisses just below the line of my jaw until I have to turn my head to give him access to the other side.

"It's something I've been asking for," I whisper. "For a good while."

I can feel his smile against my skin and that's when I put my fingers on his chest and push him back away from me a little so that I can see his eyes. They're burning for me and I give him my best mischievous smile.

"I want you to show him," I say and that's when the elevator comes to a stop at our floor and I duck under his arms and exit into the hallway. I turn and for a second he's frozen with his arms still apart, but his fingers are pressing against the glass and he pushes himself back towards where I am. When he turns to look at me the frustration knits his brow and he runs his hands through his hair, pushing it away from his face with a big draw in and exhale of breath. I just smile at him.

"It's time," I prod him.

"Will you be there?" he asks, his hands are laced behind his neck and with his elbows jutting out in front of him he cocks a hip and the way his body bends makes me regret my teasing of him for the effect it had on me.

"I will, but not in the room." I answer and he purses his lips to keep whatever response he has inside.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he finally says.

"No," I answer him honestly. "But it's time."

"How do you know we won't kill each other?"

"Because I know you, and you didn't kill him before, so what makes you think it'll happen now?" He shrugs his shoulders and gives me my little bit of logic. I step towards him and put my arms around his waist, raising myself up to kiss his cheek.

"Trust me," I say and the tension leaves his body while I hold on to him and his silence lets me know that he has agreed. I kiss him again and then back away, leaving him standing in the hall and following me with his gaze while I walk away backwards from him.

"I'll meet you at the map," I say and more than fear, there is worry in his eyes when I turn the corner and leave him alone.

I head back to the common rooms where people gather during down time, hoping that I won't have to search too hard and make James wait. But I don't have to prolong my search, in the main living room I find the person I am looking for.

"Steve!" I say and the blonde on the couch looks up from his newspaper with a warm smile at me.

"Alina," he says, raising a mug of coffee in greeting. "How are you?"

"I'm well, thank you," I say, taking a seat near him on the couch. "And you?"

He tilts his head just slightly, a gesture of so-so and I can understand. There have been few updates for him in the few weeks since I declared to him that I was staying. I don't know if he's kept his distance on purpose or if I just haven't noticed him circling around. Either way he's been more than patient with me and it's time that we bring him in.

"Steve," I say. "It's time that you saw what he's been working on." I don't need any preamble, he seems to pick up on who I'm talking about with little encouragement. He sets the paper down on the coffee table and runs his thumb along the rim of his cup, staring at the motion before he speaks again.

"Does he want me to?" He asks.

"Yes and no," I tell him. "He knows it's what's best, but I think he's afraid that he'll have been wrong about some parts of his memories. But you were his best friend, he needs you now. Just come see, don't tell him he's wrong about anything, because this is what he remembers and what he's been able to piece together on his own. Just, let him guide you through it."

"You know, I've been thinking," he says. "There's a lot I missed those years in the ice, and I thought it was bad enough to have to take it all in. But this, this is much worse."

Steve is quiet for a moment before he slams back the rest of his coffee and picks up his paper and folds it under his arm. He stands and holds out a hand to me and I take it so he can pull me gently to my feet. I don't sway like I did the first day we met, instead I give him a reassuring smile.

"You can only help him now," I tell him and put a hand on his arm.

I leave Steve outside of James' room, telling him that I will be on the other side of the one-way glass listening to the conversation. I ask him to wait a minute, to give me a chance to settle myself in the viewing room before he knocks. He nods and doesn't turn his gaze, which has taken on a new kind of resolve, and I slip into the observation room. It's padded, sound-proofed walls close me in and muffle the noise from me moving a chair around and shuffling my pad of paper and pen. I click on a speaker below the window and it crackles a little before a quiet hum settles.

James is pacing in front of the memory map, rubbing his hands together and I tap on the window to get his attention. He looks right at where I'm sitting and moves over quickly to the window.

"Hi," I say and he smiles.

"You found the speaker system," he murmurs. He puts his hand against the glass and I put mine up, matching my fingers to his.

"Yes," I answer. "I'm right here. Don't be scared." He smiles and then there is a knock on the door, pulling us away from each other and James turns towards the door and takes a deep breath, steadying himself. I draw in as much air as I can and hold it in while he goes to the door and hesitates for a second with his hand on the knob. He looks over at the window, gives me the tiniest of nods, and opens the door.

Steve stands with his hands in his pockets, his body is relaxed but his eyes are alert. James holds the door open for him, and for a second I think that they are going to launch into one another. But Steve moves into the room cautiously, seeming to understand the gravity of the situation and the fact that the two haven't been alone together like this since DC. He stays in James' line of sight, shuffling his feet as he walks. His eyes go straight to the wall covered in index cards that have been connected now with bits of string, pulling all the bits and pieces together into a web of a life.

James watches him from the door, leaving it partially open, a possible escape for either of them. He lets his hands drop to his sides and stands at a kind of parade rest with his feet shoulder width apart, attempting to let his upper body relax. The only tell is that every so often his metal hand will clench briefly and then return to a relaxed state. Other than that subtle movement, he appears calm. I slowly let out the breath I had been holding.

"This is what you've been working on?" Steve asks, keeping his voice neutral. He turns his full attention to the wall and from where I sit I can see the impressed look on his face, but James cannot. Steve moves closer to the center card, the one with James full name on it, and reads the cluster surrounding that. Those first cards were mostly single words, names of places, or an event or descriptive word that were then used to launch into longer stories or more elaborate memories that could be pieced together later. But Steve seems focused on the very first card, the name card, and the picture of a smiling and James in his uniform.

"It's hard to believe you're the same person, Bucky," he says, his voice so low that I can barely hear him.

"I don't know if I am," James says. Steve looks back over his shoulder at him and the tension between them begins to crack.

"This is you," he says and points to all the cards. "There's a whole life here and you can put it back together. Whatever you need from me, I can give it to you." He points to the card with his name on it and moves close enough to the wall that he is touching it.

"We're friends. We always will be. You're going to have to do a lot better than throwing me off a helicarrier to get rid of me."

James smiles, and I feel a flood of relief. The crack in their separation widens and I can sense it beginning to break apart. They start slowly, Steve tells him why he calls him 'Bucky', James tells him he remembers Brooklyn, an apartment, schoolyards, but the memories are hazy and not very well defined. Steve picks up the cues and fills in some gaps, pausing when James sits at the table to fill out another card, or goes to the wall to add things to the ones that are already there.

I listen from my little observation room, letting the two work through the childhood portion of the map. What I'm watching is an incredible act of trust for the two of them. What James and I had spent weeks, almost months, collecting were the building blocks for the foundation of who he was and who he can be in the future. What Steve is now is the map for putting those blocks in place, the voice of real memory and fact that James can use as the guide to really coming back to himself.

The afternoon wears on and while they are cautious with each other, they eventually move the chairs to sit side by side and gaze at the wall, at all the new cards and details that they have added.

"It's a great piece of work, Buck," Steve says and with the slightest of hesitation, he reaches over and puts his hand on his friends shoulder. James visibly tenses up but nods in response. Steve leaves his hand there for a few more seconds and gives James a squeeze before he removes it.

"Thanks," James says, his voice tight but still him, no hint of the soldier, just the friend. I make note on my papers and flip off the speaker, my body feeling lighter than I have in a long time. _All will be well,_ I think to myself.

All will be well.


End file.
